Senator wants MCAs to get same treatment as MPs

By ROSELYNE OBALA

Kenya: County assemblies may soon be entitled to the immunities and privileges enjoyed by Parliament, if a proposed law at the Senate is enacted.

The County Assemblies Immunities and Privileges Bill, sponsored by Majority Leader Kithure Kindiki and already published at the Senate seeks to protect county assemblies from external forces while undertaking their constitutional mandate.

Prof Kindiki stresses that Parliament and the county assemblies are both legislative arms of the two levels of government and therefore county lawmakers should enjoy the same immunities and privileges accorded to their national colleagues.

He argues that the proposed law will protect county assemblies, which are presently exposed and subject to manipulations.

“Without the law in place, county assemblies will continue to be subjected to court injunctions as was the case with local authorities,” he said and added: “We have noted the weak point and we must now seal the loophole.”

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Kindiki wants county assemblies “properly and legally instituted” like the national Parliament to be able to carry out their duties as provided in law. “County assemblies are no longer the former local authorities but an arm of county governments that operates exactly as the national legislature and therefore the Members of the County Assemblies are by law entitled to these privileges,” the Tharaka Nithi Senator said.

He said that if the law was in place, the recent happenings in Embu County, where the High Court held that the Speaker and Clerk were in contempt of court for allowing the indictment process against Governor Martin Wambora despite a court injunction, would not have happened.

Court order

He concurred with the three-judge bench that the County Assembly was in breach of the law for disregarding the court order, however he argued that if the County Immunities and Privileges Act was in effect, the court could have not injuncted it. “This is one of the gaps we have discovered at the county assemblies that needs to be corrected to allow counties perform their functions as stipulated in law,” he said.

The senator stated that the Immunities and Privileges Act protects Parliament in exercising its constitutional obligation and that’s why the Judiciary cannot injunct it.

“We want the county legislature to perform its duties as is the case with the national Parliament and be protected from attack,” he added.