Government coalition chief whip Johnstone Muthama has accused House Speaker Kenneth Marende of breaking the law when declaring President Kibaki’s nominations unconstitutional February 19, 2011. FILE
By NATION TeamPosted Saturday, February 19 2011 at 15:02
The government coalition chief whip Johnstone Muthama has accused House Speaker Kenneth Marende of breaking the law when declaring President Kibaki’s nominations unconstitutional.
He said Mr Marende was “biased” in his ruling and that he “should have acted in the best interests of the country and the constitution and not the Orange Democratic Party (ODM), which nominated him to be the Speaker".
“We have now seen who the Speaker is serving…the party which propelled him to Parliament and which, with its majority voted for him to be the Speaker,” he added.
Mr Muthama, a close ally of the Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and a key supporter of President Kibaki accused the Speaker of allowing the coalition power tussles to play out in the House.
"Time has come for us to go out and tell Kenyans what is really happening between the two grand coalition parties and the leadership of this country…there’s a big infighting going on,” he said.
Mr Muthama said that the Speaker’s ruling ignored the reports of the Justice and Legal Affairs committee and the Finance, Planning and Trade committee, by not allowing them to give debate their reports.
“The Speaker did it the way he wanted to do it, and because it seems he knew his stand (from the beginning), why did he direct the two committees to go and come up with their finding if he was not ready to consider them. This is wastage of Kenyans’ money.”
He said that though the committees were openly divided on their findings, the House should have been given the chance to hear them out and debate the reports, in accordance with the Standing Orders.
“The Speaker asked them to write letters to say that their reports were ready which they did. But in return, it was a shock to everybody when he refused to accept the reports and instead he went to the House and gave his ruling without considering the work that was done by the committees,” the MP said.
“If he knew the kind of ruling he was going to make, why did he direct the two committees to write their reports, as they spent the tax payer’s money and time, time that they could have spent with their constituents- the people who elected them?”
But as PNU MPs dig in for a fight to reinstate the nominations which the High Court, the Judicial Service Commission, the Law Society of Kenya and the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution have declared illegal, the Vice chair of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, Mr Njoroge Baiya has warned PNU MPs against seeking to reverse the ruling.
Mr Baiya said though he disagrees with Mr Marende’s ruling, challenging the ruling could have dangerous outcomes which could stall the process of implementation of the Constitution.
MPs from PNU affiliated parties and those opposed to Prime Minister Raila Odinga members are planning to overturn the ruling or censor the speaker, saying that he went beyond his powers.
"If they want us to fight the ruling in Parliament, I have no problem with that and am confident that we are going to win. But Kenyans will pay the price by having a disharmonious constitution implementation process,” Mr Baiya said in Githunguri.
“This battle is not a legalistic one but a political one calling for political solution which can only come from the two principals."
He said President Kibaki should develop to a compromise and agree to talk with the PM without minding the last time they failed to agree to save Kenyans from a political divide.
“I felt turned back by the ruling because we spent our time and governments resources in our investigations and one wonders why the speaker had to delegate the matter to the committees if he was to make his ruling with out its benefits,” he said.
President Kibaki nominated Mr Justice Alnashir Visram for Chief Justice, Prof Githu Muigai (Attorney General), Mr Kioko Kilukumi (Director of Public Prosecutions) and Mr William Kirwa (Controller of Budget), but there was a hitch following complaints to Parliament by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, that he had not been consulted as prescribed in the Constitution.
With the obvious disagreements among the principals, the Speaker rejected the names and asked the principals to consult and bring another list based on compromise.
President Kibaki faulted the Speaker for failing to respect the principle of separation of powers. It requires the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature to check each other but allow every arm to undertake its mandate.
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