MPs brace for stormy debate on draconian Media Bill

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU

Nairobi, Kenya: House Speaker Justin Muturi made a last-minute intervention to save a chaotic House from adopting the oppressive presidential memorandum on the Kenya Information and Communication Bill, 2013.

The Speaker moved in just as the House began debate on the presidential memo and postponed the debate to this morning at 9am.

“It is obvious that while in the committee, the House had degenerated into anarchy. There’s disorder. There will be no further proceedings in committee today,” said the Speaker.

“Let us remain cool, it is not the end of the world. We will make decisions one way or the other.”

Opposition MPs strongly pleaded with Majority Leader Aden Duale and the chairperson of the House Committee on Energy, Communications and Information Jamleck Kamau (Kigumo) to put off the debate until they have numbers.

But Duale went ahead and pushed to have the memo adopted. CORD MPs rejected the move. Through Peter Kaluma (Homabay), they moved a dilatory motion to postpone the debate, but the presiding Speaker Rachel Shebesh (Nairobi) rejected the motion.

Kaluma and CORD MPs were furious. They heckled Shebesh and shouted her down.

“It does not matter how much you shout, you will not intimidate the chair. The rules of the House must be followed,” said Shebesh.

Kamau, having seen that there were not 233 MPs in the House to allow the National Assembly to amend the presidential memorandum, withdrew all the amendments that the media industry players had submitted to the committee. The amendments had been agreed to by the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution and the Attorney General.

“I realise that we do not have the numbers, I hereby withdraw all the amendments of the committee in totality,” said Kamau as he paved way for Duale to continue prosecuting the presidential memorandum.

Postpone debate

“We have done all we can as a committee. What I’d want to ask this House is for us to proceed, so we can be able to make whatever amendments that are possible. When you say that you postpone debate to another day, what guarantee do we have that we’ll have the two-thirds majority?” asked Kamau.

With that, the deal was off the table. It can be reintroduced through individual MPs.

Deputy Minority Whip Chris Wamalwa (Kiminini) said it was a waste for the players in the media industry, the public, and the committee to meet and have the matters rejected. Wamalwa said the best way was for the matter to be postponed, and the MPs marshal the numbers to reject the presidential memorandum.

But when Shebesh pushed on, pandemonium descended in the House as CORD MPs got angry that she was trying to force the MPs to adopt the president’s memo without any amendments.

“What she was doing is trying to corner the House to just pass the presidential memorandum. If we had continued to debate, the presidential memorandum would have passed without amendments,” said Kaluma as soon as the Speaker postponed the debate.

Heavy penalties

Prior to the debate, CORD had tried to plead with Muturi to drop the matter on grounds that the president’s amendments were unconstitutional. Abdikadir Aden (Balambala) said the heavy penalties to journalists were likely to impinge on the freedom of the media.

He rejected the Speaker’s view that only the president’s memorandum could be discussed.

“It will be unconstitutional in my view for this House to restrict amendments to the reservations expressed by the President only…If this House is to pass anything today, it should not be passing the issues put here on this, being the views of the President. We can only consider these views,” said Aden.

But Muturi rejected the argument and told Aden that the House works on practice and precedents, and that debate on the presidential memorandum had to go on.

“I will not pretend that it is in my power to preempt debate or what your own committees come to report here. It will be wrong. The Speaker cannot prevent debate of this nature happening especially given the clear provisions of the Constitution,” said Muturi.

He said the matter had to be resolved through voting.

“It is your duty to do what you must do. If you make a bad law, live with it. Sleep without any problems, because somebody else has a responsibility to go and say this is against the Constitution, if indeed it is… Never mind about Article 34, somebody else will go to some other place (read courts) to have that interpreted,” the Speaker added.

But Ababu Namwamba (Budalang’i) was not happy with the Speaker. He read the oath that all MPs took when they were sworn in, and emphasised that their main job was to protect the Constitution.

“There’s no rush, the matter we are dealing with goes to the very heart of the Bill of Rights; it goes to the very hearts of freedoms that this House has tried to strengthen and engender in the Constitution. Let us not play with the freedom of the Press. May you kindly, without purporting to guide your work, listen to the plea by the MP for Balambala,” said Namwamba.

“Whether you want to kowtow to the whims of the Executive and appear to be a defender of the throne, your number one responsibility is the Constitution of the Republic of Kenya and that is where your primary responsibility ought to lie,” Namwamba told Muturi.