The people and not laws are the vanguards of integrity

By Hassan Omar Hassan

The hullabaloo on the Integrity Bill puzzles me. A nation at pains trying to legislate integrity! The next thing, we will be trying to legislate morality, good conduct and anything else that comes across our minds.

No doubt, we are a wounded nation. The scares of bad governance are evident. We are a people full of distrust towards our political class. And justifiably so. We therefore attempt to seek all our solutions from legislation. It’s futile. We ultimately must take responsibility as a people.

The issue of integrity is a political and not a legal question. The solution to integrity is in the reach of our hands. You require no legislation. You simply require good people to rise up to the challenges of leadership.

Elected representatives do not vote themselves into office or power. We do. So stop the façade and do the right thing. Evaluate and vet those who offer themselves for elective offices as a personal responsibility. You cannot legislate for everything. And it cannot always be the fault of MPs. We share in blame in equal quantum. Who voted or who votes for these sorts of people?

The legislative process cannot have all the answers. But I trust as a determined people, we can or we do. We know the looters, the murders, violators, tribalists, impuniteers and all sorts of suspects and criminals within our midst. We have reasonable knowledge or suspicion of their sources of wealth, their violations, their suspected crimes and whatever else.

You don’t need the law to bar them from seeking elective offices. Bar them with your vote once these criminals are on the ballot paper. Just because the law doesn’t provide for it doesn’t make your task anymore difficult. Come on. What we need is preparedness.

We have a fast-transforming Judiciary whose interpretations can test the extent of application of Chapter 6 of the Constitution with respect to leadership and integrity. Part of the prayers to these courts can include an order for a public declaration as to the sources of one’s wealth.

Further, we need to strengthen constitutional commissions charged with various mandates on integrity. This will require the various individuals appointed to the various commissions and offices to remain true to the mandates of their offices and their responsibility to Kenyans. We should now be preparing evidence that can stand the test of legal scrutiny for the determination of our courts.

I will be skeptical for unempirical forums without the strict application of the rules of natural justice like the National Security Intelligence Service making a ‘determination’ on the suitability of one’s candidature. You can imagine a ‘SECRET’ document outlining ‘credible evidence’ linking you or me to AQ’s (Al-Qaeda) high command becoming a basis to bar your candidacy.

Such unsubstantiated allegations and a myriad of other issues can be the basis of political witch-hunting. If there should be any legitimate or factual ‘dirt’ that can stand judicial or public scrutiny then it should be subjected to the rigours of our judicial and electoral process. That is partly why we have an official campaign period. This period allows the citizenry to scrutinise their would-be leaders.

The first and last line of defence, the vanguards of integrity are the people. Questions abound. When we lose 60 lives as was the case in Tana River, do you sack the chief or do you get the Provincial Commissioner and/or the minister to resign. As a people, we must re-imagine our responsibility with respect to integrity.

The writer is a lawyer and former commissioner with the KNCHR