Presentation Of HDC to Parliamentary Select Committee
The Committee of Experts (CoE) presented its final outline of the Harmonized Draft Constitution — enriched by the views Kenyans gave in the 30-day period their opinions were being sought — to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitution Review.
The team charged with writing a new constitution for Kenya retained the hybrid system of government in the revised draft released on Friday. The move to retain the hybrid system came after the experts failed to reach consensus on whether they should propose a purely parliamentary or presidential system.
The experts who have been reviewing the draft in line with submissions presented by the public since Monday, have also reduced the levels of devolution to two — a national government and county governments. The committee has also left intact the proposal to have a parliament with two houses — national assembly and senate.
This comes in the wake of a meeting by the coalition management committee that was appointed by the two principals last year. The meeting failed to reach a consensus on the standing disagreement over PNU and ODM’s long-standing disagreement on the structure of the proposed structure of Executive, which sets out two centres of power — the Presidency and the Premiership.
The CoE Chairman, Nzamba Kitonga ruled out requests by some politicians and groups for two drafts to be unveiled so that the Wananchi could vote for their preferred one. He argued that the law did not allow this. Kitonga said it would now be up to PSC to build consensus among Kenyans so as to ensure the draft was accepted ahead of the referendum.
Another contentious issue about the HDC was over the requirements needed to endorse the new laws by Parliament. The ODM team told the meeting all that would be required of Parliament to pass or reject it was a simple majority vote. They argued this was so because what would be taking place would not be, "Constitutional amendment but a replacement of the old Constitution." The PNU side argued the draft must be rejected or endorsed on a two-thirds majority basis in the House.
After Friday’s presentation at the County Hall, the PSC chaired by Mandera Central MP Abdikadir Mohammed, will have a 21-day deadline to debate the draft before returning it to the experts with recommendations on contentious issues.
