BBI does not provide transitional mechanisms

 

The entire Building Bridges Initiative process did not respect one key aspect of the Constitution, which is its supremacy.

The supremacy of the Constitution is the foundation basis of the supreme law. So, if you are going to undertake any constitutional change of any nature, you must start from there. BBI process is not anchored on that.

When you look at the entire process, it is not amending a single chapter, it is actually overhauling the Constitution.

On the Executive alone, you are altering the fundamental structure of the governance system. For you do that, you must have taken a serious process. The BBI process it did not pay attention to the transitional clauses and the consequential in the Constitution.

So if you are going to implement say a change of the entire basic structure of the Executive, it is in the coming election or in the next polls?

In the Constitution that we have, if you go to the transitional and consequential chapters, it did provide transitional mechanisms. There are sections of old constitutions that were retained to give a lead in terms of the transition.

If it is about the constituencies, the IEBC has the constitutional mandate under Article 89 to determine and review the electoral units.

BBI does not provide the transitional consequences. When do we start reviewing the boundaries for the 70 constituencies?

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has already started piloting on the reviews, the Constitution provides that schedule takes eight to 12 years. How does the changes in BBI relate with the work of the IEBC?

There is no clear transitional mechanisms on that. Even the money they are talking about - 35 per cent to the counties - when is it taking place?

What we are dealing with in the BBI is an attempt to do a lot of patchwork not informed by doing a comprehensive audit of the Constitution to be able to provide clear transitional process from the current to the amended Constitution.

What you have are people who are trying to jump into amending the Constitution in a very disjointed way.  BY THE STAR