Granted that re-election is the inevitable goal of the members of the two houses, they must make better use of their legislative forum to bargain over the diverse interest of their respective voters.
The ongoing territorial wars among the three arms of government are troubling and a threat to democracy.
A case in point is the parliamentary intra-wrangling between the Senate and the National Assembly. At the core of this deadlock is the National Assembly’s failure to seek Senate’s constitutional concurrence over the enactment of counties related Bills.
The Senate has unanimously threatened to seek another Supreme Court advisory. If the stalemate is not resolved amicably, it will likely imperil the legislative agenda on devolution and hence impede public service delivery.
Our Constitution espouses the doctrine of separation of powers, which is the hallmark of democracy. The doctrine refers to the division of sovereign power into legislative, executive and judicial powers that must be exercised independently by the Parliament, President and the Judiciary respectively.
Independent execution of these powers limits any one branch of government from exercising the core functions of another. The intent is to prevent the concentration of power and provide for checks and balances.
With a bicameral parliamentary system, the execution of much of legislative powers rests on the National Assembly but Senate has constitutional role to represent, serve and protect the interest of counties governments. Specifically, the Senate is constitutionally expected to consider debate and approve Bills concerning the counties.
Under the Constitution, the legislative agenda of formulating statutes to implement policies rests with Parliament. In the last General Election, the citizens voted for members of the National Assembly and senators who credibly promised to cater for their interests in return of their votes.
Thus, the constitutional electoral strategy is to ensure that the citizens’ interests converge with those of the elected officials. Such convergence explicitly gives the citizens a direct oversight role that you hope wound incentivise the two houses to execute their respective legislative duties collaboratively.
The National Assembly’s alleged disregard of the Senate’s input on counties’ related Bill like Mining Bill violated the convergence principle aforementioned and renders the check and balances mechanism ineffective.
This hierarchical impulse that seemingly gives the National Assembly an upper hand over the Senate must be delicately handled. While it may reduce the bargaining costs between the two houses and hence enhance legislative effectiveness, it is also counterproductive.
Complete disregard of the Senate’s check and balance on counties’ related matter, reinforces the dominance of National Assembly’s legislative authority. Such dominance is likely to be abused by the National Assembly especially in the presence of weak citizenry oversight like in this case.
The aforementioned abuse of dominance may manifest in a legislative failure to cater for the interests of all counties including the marginalised ones. Such failure would have a serious policy implication of the fulfilment of devolution promise.
In conclusion, members of the National Assembly and Senate as elected representatives share common goal of serving the diverse interests of their respective constituents.
Granted that re-election is the inevitable goal of the members of the two houses, they must make better use of their legislative forum to bargain over the diverse interest of their respective voters.
Senators and members of the National Assembly must be alive to fact that devolution is a popular proposition with many voters.
Prof Kieyah is a principal policy analyst at KIPPRA
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