CONSTITUTION OF KENYA REVIEW COMMISSION
(CKRC)
Verbatim Report of
58TH PLENRY MEETING HELD IN THE CKRC BOARDROOM, KENCOM HOUSE
02.10.2002
CONSTITUTION OF KENYA REVIEW COMMISSION
58TH PLENARY MEETING HELD ON OCTOBER 02, 2002, AT KENCOM HOUSE
Present:
1. Prof. Yash Pal Ghai - Chairperson
2. Mrs. Abida Ali Aroni - Vice Chairperson
3. John Mutakha Kangu - Commissioner
4. Ms. Nancy Baraza - “
5. Dr. Charles Maranga - “
6. Ms. Salome Wairimu Muigai - “
7. Mr. Domiziano Ratanya - “
8. Bishop Bernard Kariuki Njoroge - “
9. Mr. Riunga Raiji - “
10. Pastor Zablon Ayonga - “
11. Mr. Githu Muigai - “
12. Mr. Ibrahim Lethome Asman - “
13. Dr. Abdirizak Arale Nunow - “
14. Mr. Paul Wambua - “
15. Ms. Kavetsa Adagala - “
16. Mr. Ahamed I. Hassan - “
17. Prof. Wanjiku Kabira - “
18. Hon. Mrs. Phoebe Asiyo - “
19. Prof. W.H.O. Okoth-Ogendo - “
20. Dr. M.A. Swazuri - ”
21. Mrs. Alice Yano - “
22. Mosonik arap Korir - “
23. Mr. Isaac Lenaola - “
24. Mr. Keriako Tobiko - “
25. PLO Lumumba - Commission Secretary
Apologies:
1. Prof. Ahmed I. Salim - Vice Chairperson
2. Mr. Abubakar Zein Abubakar - “
3. Dr. Andronico Adede - “
4. Hon. Amos Wako - Ex-Officio
Meeting started at 2.40 p.m. with Prof. Yash Pal Ghai in the Chair.
Prof. Ghai: Can I call the meeting to order please and I will ask Raiji if he would say prayers for us today please.
Com. Raiji: Let us pray. God Almighty, we come before you today to thank you in a special way for the great favours you have given us as a Commission so that we have been able to complete a substantial task of our work despite the obstacles that we have had. We pray for your blessings and we may be able to continue with the remaining aspects of our work so that we may be able to deliver to Kenyans the Constitution that they mandated us to prepare. We pray all this through Christ our Lord.
Prof. Ghai: Any apologies?
PLO Lumumba: There are apologies from Prof. Salim and Zein Abubakar.
Prof. Ghai: Okay, any others?
We do not have any item here for the Minutes of the last meeting, is that deliberate?
PLO Lumumba: The Minutes of the last meeting are fairly long and I think given the time constraint this was christened “a Special Plenary” to dispose of urgent business.
Prof. Ghai: Okay, so we move straight to reports from the Committees and we start with CEPIC. They are not here? Mobilisation.
MOBILISATION COMMITTEE:
Com. Kabira: Thank you, Chair. There are a number of items we wanted to report today and the file is nicely divided so you can see where the documents are. It is written Mobilisation, that is the green piece of paper. The first item you have there is the District Coordinators’ workshop which I think we are all aware of so it is basically for noting and for the Commissioners to note the sessions that they are taking tomorrow and Friday. It is also to let you know that this workshop, at the request of a number of people, was expanded to include members of civil society, so it will not just be the District Coordinators alone, there will be maybe between 30 and 40 members of civil society who are interested in disseminating the National Report and the Draft Bill. But if you look at the programme it really just gives a set of presentations on the key areas of the Draft Bill and we believe that those presenting will also take into consideration, before they give their presentations, the people’s views. So the documents we are using are basically the Report and the Draft Bill. We are requesting the Commissioners to see where they are slotted in and present themselves either tomorrow or Friday for the meetings. That is the first item we are presenting.
The next item which you have here - the summary was supposed to come I think it is still on the way – is the dissemination of the Draft Bill and the Report by Commissioners and some Programme Officers to the constituencies. We have noted there that the activities begin on the 7th and end on the 18th of October and we have a short programme. We believe that this is going to be a session of about three hours, beginning from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the Commissioners will present the Report maybe within a period of one hour, present the highlights of the Bill within the period of another one hour and then give the participants the opportunity to respond in another one hour. So basically that is the proposal, but the details and how to deal with those issues are not in the programme and we believe the Civic Education committee will help us in dealing with that.
You will notice that about constituencies will be attended to by Programme Officers because unlike the other activities we have had, except the civic education that came much earlier, we do not have enough people to go every constituency before at least the 20th, which is a public holiday. It has been proposed that the pre-conference activities and other preparatory activities begin at least by 22nd of October, so we thought it would be good for us to complete by 18th of this month.
That training module is not really a training module, it is just a set of things that are supposed to be done during the training and you can ignore it for now.
If you go to the next page after what is called ‘a training module’ you have National Conference delegates summary of issues and this is a document that probably we will need to study a little more. It gives us an update of the delegates and some of the issues that are coming up. So, if you look at page one, we have a report of all the districts delegates, but we have complaints from quite a number of districts. We have Nakuru, Vihiga, Kajiado, Busia, Teso, Siaya, Buret, Mandera, Kiambu, Gucha and Marsabit. So there are about 11 districts where we have written complaints, some of them actually are elaborate, for example Busia; people have appended their signatures to the complaints and the District Coordinator has acknowledged that that needs to be reviewed. So there are quite a number of complaints that have come in. For the districts apart from Nairobi and Kericho, yesterday was the deadline of submission of any complaints because we had said 14 days so any other complaint that comes after today will not be considered.
Political parties: we have problems also with political parties, some of them being the fact that the list you see there – a list of 19 political parties – the letters have come back and there has been no communication; either they have changed their addresses or they are non-existent, etc.
The next list of political parties just below that shows you that some of the parties have submitted three names depending on the different factions in each of them. So those are problems that will need to be dealt with and letters have already gone to them drawing their attention to the anomalies.
Then we have the civil society representations, professional organizations, the list is there but that list also has some problems in terms of regional representation, etc.; trade union representations, we have them there and we also have some problems with that; the women’s organizations on the next page, the list is also attached. We did not see much to complain about under the women. NGO representatives, we thought there are things that need to be addressed also, the regional representation does not seem to have been taken into consideration.
We have a full file of other interest groups, different people who want to be considered and “Other Groups”. I think religious organizations are the only ones who have not submitted their list of the delegates. So all those other pages following are the lists of delegates as they have come in.
The only other thing that I need to report which is on – I am sorry I cannot see the document – sorry, it is there. It is a small document which is called Mobilisation Report to Plenary on Thursday, 22nd. That small document has the-- I am looking for the venue; issues related to the venue for the National Conference because I wanted to report that the Chair, myself, Lethome and the Secretariat (Col. Gichuhi) visited both Bomas and Kasarani. We know that we had agreed that Bomas was going to be the venue and we thought we should re-open the discussion to see whether we could reconsider. We felt that there is merit, for instance, in the Bomas of Kenya for a number of reasons and on that note I will wait for Lethome who is supposed to report on that. (Com. Lethome walks in). So maybe we discuss the venue and to give Lethome an opportunity to sit down, if there are questions on the other issues they could be raised.
PLO Lumumba: The Kenya African National Union, KANU, have indicated that they need up to Friday to forward the name of their representative. They thought they would receive more slots but they were advised that they only have slot. We have also received representation from the Kenya Socialist Congress, they will give us the name of their representative on Friday.
Com. Kabira: Okay, thank you.
Com. Nunow: Mr. Chairman, I think we had made it very clear that this list should reflect the national diversity in terms of the provinces and we were very categorical that it has to reflect a regional balance or provincial balance.
Com. Kangu: Mr. Chairman, I want to suggest that since Prof. Kabira has submitted a number of documents, that we deal with each one of them following the order she has used so that if there are people with comments maybe on the programme for tomorrow’s workshop, we clear that then move on to the next. I think that will be a more structured discussion.
Prof. Ghai: I agree. So what shall we take first? Which one do you want us to take first?
Com. Kabira: The workshop.
Prof. Ghai: Workshop, okay.
Com. Ogendo: Chairman, I do not want to throw the spanner in Prof. Kabira’s works, but I always thought that workshops were approved before they were organized. We are being told to note that there is a workshop and I do not remember that workshop ever having been tabled here for approval.
Com. Kabira: Maybe the programme was not tabled but the idea itself was tabled and then it was actually proposed that we would finalise the details of the workshop when we were in Mombasa but then we never had the opportunity to discuss these issues in Mombasa.
Com. Ogendo: I accept that explanation, Mr. Chairman.
Prof. Ghai: Can we look at the programme, please. Do you want to say more about it?
Com. Ogendo: Only this, that I note that the only function a Professor of Public Law performs is chairing a sessions and not making any substantive statement on an important issue like this!
Prof. Ghai: And the other Professor of Public Law does the official opening and nothing more!
PLO Lumumba: (inaudible) just gives the vote of thanks!
Com. Kabira: I think the good leaders are developing the capacity of the others so that they can become Professors as well! But I think we are prepared to change the presenters and so on depending on the recommendations made because this is a proposal.
Com. Bishop Njoroge: What is the (?) you want to work on political parties so that I can—
Com. Lenaola: Chairman, I have been asked to speak on the district councils and the other councils tomorrow at 4.30 p.m. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend that session, I thought I would have a session earlier in the day and therefore I will ask that I be excused from the programme and suggest instead that, because Dr. Maranga, some other Commissioners and I had worked on this aspect of Devolution, I suggest that Dr. Maranga takes my place. He is quite conversant with that particular structure, if he would agree to do that.
Prof. Ghai: Yes, Charles is not here; have you checked with Charles?
Com. Lenaola: No, I have just seen the programme.
Prof. Ghai: Well, okay.
Com. Bishop Njoroge: Com. Lenaola says he would only be available in the morning and I want to make a suggestion that where myself and Mutakha Kangu are, we can bring that to the morning so that then he is able to present; then we can take Electoral System and Political Parties in the afternoon. That is just a suggestion so that he is able to present.
Prof. Ghai: All right, I did not quite hear that, I was—
Com. Mutakha Kangu: He changed the timing.
Prof. Ghai: Okay. If you are all happy with that, that is fine.
Com. Bishop Njoroge: Electoral Systems now goes to the afternoon; you will see there from 11.30 to 1.00 o’clock.
Prof. Ghai: Including political parties?
Com. Bishop Njoroge: Including political parties. I think they have to go together so that—
Com. Mutakha Kangu: Will that time be enough? It is only 4.30 to 6.00.
Com. Bishop Njoroge: Yes, that is one and a half hours.
Com. Mutakha Kangu: How can we have three different sessions in one and a half hours when you have me there!
Com. Bishop Njoroge: No, what we are saying here-- John, in the morning you and I are talking one an a half hours, in the afternoon Dr. Maranga and Lenaola are taking one and a half hours. So it is just switching the times.
Com.Mutakha Kangu: But is says in the afternoon Maranga is chairing at 4.30 and I am supposed to present and then Lenaola is supposed to be there and-- Fine, I do not mind but I do not think-- Maybe we can leave Political Parties in the morning and shift those district councils.