Am Sorry What!!!

I have kept mam for a while reason being none actually, however given the battle of the equals must have shaken me from my slumber. The debate on the senate, judiciary, the governors has had the headlines for a while and perhaps its important that I also offer my two cents or perhaps more. A brief background His Excellency the Governor of the County of Embu Wambora was impeached by the county assembly , Wambora had already moved to court to stop the MCA from debating on his impeachment, they went ahead in breach of the order debated the same impeached the fellow and forwarded to the senate who sealed his fate he was shown the door but not for long as the courts declared the actions of the senate and MCA's void ab initio on the other end the senate had mounted a two-pronged attack on the governors by summoning them to answer to allegations of misappropriation the governors also got orders barring the same. Now we have a stale male of who is greater or who should listen to the other.

This matter needs no further belaboring and now right to the salient issues. Firsly the supremacy of the constituion is an indisputable issue and it applies to all citizens, article one is very clear that authority comes from the people and such authority is vested on various state organs for the smooth and efficient running of government, article 96 of the constitution gives the senate oversight role over the national revenue allocated to the counties, it would therefore follow that if the same oversight was to be exersised then the senate has the power to summon the chief executive officer of the county being the governors to shed light on the ependiture of public finance and parliament cannot shirk responsibility simply because governors think they are so big to be summoned. In my view article 125 of the CoK is instructive on parliament to ask for accountabilty of public monies allocated to the counties and this can only be done through summons by the relevant parliamentry committes. Once parliament has issued such summons it expects them to be honored but if a party feels that such summons are illegal, scandalous, vexatious, intended to embarras and therefore in contravention of the law then, they may approach the courts for an interpretation of such actions and or staying such orders. Since parliament expects obedience it may be tempted to use other avenues which are not neccesarily justified but are way within the law such as threatening not to debate on the revenue allocation bill which in effect would starve the counties of the much needed cash to squander.

Disobeying court orders and parliamentary summons flies in the face of legislation, this has become common play In this country in total disregard of the consequences, if the three arms of government cannot respect each others function under the pretext of the separation of powers then it potrays a deeply disturbing image of our commitment to apply and implement the spirit and letter of our constitution. The principle of separation of powers is however not absolute as to prevent other arms of government from providing checks and balances as to the running of operations, it is quite unfortunate when parliament threatens to crack the whip on any one that does not flow with them, to me it is a recipe for anarchy because now the roots of impunity are bound to buttress themselves in our governance system. The rule of law is very clear that nobody is above the law and thus all persons are subject to the confines of the laws of the land, be it parliament, the judiciary or the executive ,the need to uphold to the rule of law is the hinge upon which the leadership and integrity clauses hold on.

Let me take this opportunity to state that the citizenry has no obligation to support a regime hell bent to cause chaos, it would be absurd to pay taxes only for them to be misused both at the national and county level the absurdity is further aggravated when the affected parties do not have the willingness to own up or give reasonable explanation to the relevant constitutional bodies and instead want to engage in supremacy battles. Accusations have been peddled against Mr Wambora and the county assembly which is the voice of the people has rendered a decision as to his culpability the senate also a representative of the people has decided that he had the greatest burden to bear but instead of asking for his legitmate right to fair hearing he tries to evade the issue via constituional provisions but I say to myself that the chickens will surely come home to roost.

Dwelling further on this issue, I can only say we live in a lawless country where arms of governments threaten each other with sanctions in order to gain the others cooperation,this is just sick and totally in bad taste in fact its an insult to the electorate. As citizens we desire to see a working government but if the melee we find ourselves persists then a constitutional crisis will ensue, Kenyans will not require any other reasons to move the ukranian way and trust me its not a pretty sight. now the governor have gone to the supreme court once again to ask for advisory opinion as to whether the senate can summon them, this insatiable appetite for litigation must not be allowed to flourish because lawyers thrive on such matters to make a living, they know the law but they would rather not turn down such an important brief plus the law forbids us from sending away any client. It therefore begs the question, if  an organ excercises supervisory jurisdiction over the counties doesnt it mean they have the authority to summon the highest level of the management to explain their use of resources? the irony here being that we thought we had raised the bar too high so as to require governors to be quite educated but obviously it appears the joke is on us........