The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020 will come up for debate in the National Assembly on April 1, 2021.
This is after Speaker Justin Muturi granted the joint Parliamentary committee considering the Bill additional 10 days to finalise the preparation of their report before tabling it in Parliament.
“We will strike a balance. I grant the Committee ten days to table it, on what is Fools Day, on 1st April in the afternoon,” Mr Muturi ruled.
“I am aware of the status of the draft and it will be on the order paper for the Second Reading, with or without a report,” he added.
The Senate and National Assembly Committees on Justice and Legal affairs last week finalised the public participation hearings after receiving views and memoranda from 65 individuals groups and institutions.
The committee co-chaired by Nyamira Senator Okong’o Omogeni and Kangema MP Muturi Kigano held a retreat in Mombasa but returned to Nairobi after they failed to strike a consensus on contentious clauses on the Bill.
The Bill seeks to change the 2010 Constitution by introducing a raft of proposals, including the creation of a Prime Minister position, the return of ministers in Parliament and the addition of 70 constituencies.
In an interview with the People Daily, Muturi on Tuesday revealed that the joint committee has sought the approval of Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka and his National Assembly counterpart Justin Muturi to engage experts pursuant to Standing Order 203.
The National Assembly Standing Order 203 states that the “committee may, with the approval of the Speaker, engage such experts as it may consider necessary in furtherance of its mandate”.
He said after public participation the committee considered six thematic areas; the nature of the Bill, public participation, the process of the Bill, substantive issues, referendum issues, and status of litigation in court.
With the constitutional, legal and governance issues emerging in the thematic areas, his committee asked for more time to comprehensively review the Bill and the grounds thereof.
“This is the first time the house has considered a way to amend the constitution by a popular infinitive and many constitutional and legal issues have, as expected, arisen. The emerging issues must be considered to guide this and future processes,” Muturi said.
“The committee is conducting divergent views to make the Bill coherent,” he added.
Kigano admitted that there were weighty issues raised by the members as well as stakeholders, who appeared before the committee.
The committee has this week scheduled a meeting with former members of the defunct Committee of Experts (CoE) that came up with the 2010 Constitution to advise them on Articles 256 and 256.
