Every Kenyan, every institution has the right and justification to go court.
This is especially so when they feel there is an impropriety, be it procedural, the best place to is to court.
For our institution of Parliament, the feeling is that other dispute resolution mechanisms like mediation committees did not succeed.
When you feel such mechanisms are not working, we always have the courts. The justification for the Senate to go to court to sue the National Assembly will be determined by court but it is good to remember that they have the right to seek justice.
By senators going to court, the judiciary will have a fantastic opportunity to say how the matter can be resolved at the moment and in future.
It is an issue of what does the constitution mean when the National Assembly interprets the law without consulting the Senate. The Senate felt it should have been consulted.
I think one way of resolving the matter is for the court to handle this issue comprehensively, which is part of their work.
We will be waiting to hear what the court will tell us. The other way out of such a problem is to amend the constitution, to make it clearer, but it is not in every instance you can do this considering that the same amendments go through the same institution.
So I think the option of seeking the court’s guidance is good but also like I was saying, there are other dispute resolution mechanisms like mediation committees but it seems they failed, the leadership of the two houses too.
We have to remember that the senate and national assembly have been designed to have that tension so that there is a better debate, so that there is a push and pull so that decisions made are better refined.
Leadership should come from the two houses and the political formations but at the end of the day, if no agreement can be reached, you can always go to court.
The constitutional lawyer spoke to The Star
