Friday, January 24News That Matters

Supreme Court Judges Set To Deliver Ruling On BBI Appeal

Spread the love

The Supreme Court will on Thursday deliver its judgement on the fate of the BBI constitutional review process.

The verdict by the seven-judge bench led by Chief Justice Martha Koome is likely to have a significant effect on the events in the political landscape.

The judgement holds the key to wide-ranging constitutional changes including among other things an expanded executive structure.

It will be a culmination of a protracted political and legal contest for the first amendment to the 2010 Constitution.

The nation’s attention will be on the judges who in a masterstroke will either change the county’s governance structure as we know or maintain the status quo. It is a litmus test for the CJ Koome-led bench.

The Supreme Court has a momentous task of deciphering previous rulings by the High Court and the Court of Appeal that declared the clamour to amend the Constitution, unconstitutional null and void.

Stung by a streak of losses in the lower courts, the Attorney General, President Uhuru Kenyatta, the BBI Secretariat and the electoral agency IEBC moved to the Supreme Court to challenge the decision to quash the BBI push.

In the AG’s appeal, Kihara Kariuki wants the Supreme Court to find that in the basic structure doctrine of the Constitution, all clauses can be amended.

Likewise the AG wants the Supreme Court to void the High Court and Court of Appeal rulings that the president can be sued, while that the Head of State as a Kenyan citizen has the right to not only participate but equally initiate change to the supreme law through a popular initiative.

President Kenyatta on his part submitted to the Supreme Court to entrench presidential immunity and protect the President’s right to initiate change to the constitution.

This after the lower courts ruled that the president can be sued and that the Head of State unprocedurally initiated the changes to the constitution.

In its judgement, the seven judges were invited to find that in the run up to the referendum bill there was adequate public participation.

The BBI secretariat also held that it was the initiator of the process contrary to the High Court and Court of Appeal finding that the president kicked off the exercise.

Despite being fully constituted currently, IEBC is grappling with the issue of quorum at the time of ascertaining a million signatures to propel the BBI drive to county assemblies. The commission then had only three commissioners. 

The review process had proposed to expand the Executive and introduce the position of leader of the official opposition, a prime minister and two deputies while cabinet secretaries could be drawn from Parliament.

Likewise it had proposed increased representation with an additional 70 new constituencies and increased county allocations to 35%.

Oh hi there đź‘‹
It’s nice to meet you.

Sign up to receive awesome content in your inbox, every month.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.