verbatim report of - ConstitutionNet

Rev. Patrick Maina: Thank you Commissioners, I am Reverend Patrick Maina, representing a memo on behalf of Church of
God in East Africa, Kenya.
In summary, it is our view that the Constitution of Kenya should have a preamble setting forth the mission and vision of our
nation. This should encompass the ideological foundation and structures of governance as a sovereign State. Our Constitution
should state clearly that it is our supreme instrument of governance. And therefore, it should re-establish the rule of law as a
source of legitimate governance and authority. In other words, our Constitution should deter military coups in such a sense that
at any given time of our existence, if there will be any military coup, then it should not have the legitimacy to govern the affairs of
the republic.
The country should be ruled through a democratic process in all aspects of its operations. That is, the Constitution should
guarantee participatory governance right from local councils or counties up the Central Government. And it is our view as an
institution to propagate for a unitary system of State governance. We are saying that we don’t need a federal system given the
diversity and the economic imbalance existing in our country.
On citizenship, it should be automatic that anybody born in Kenya by one parent who is Kenyan should enjoy the rights as a
Kenyan citizenship. On the other hand, by virtue of marriage, the non-Kenyan spouse should enjoy the Kenya citizenship only
on the provision that he forfeits his or her previous citizenship.
On security, that is the Armed Forces, being a supreme security instrument, it should be incoporated in the Kenya Constitution
to allow or to state clearly when they can be called to service because we have seen that most of our military people spend a
big volume of our budget but they do very little during our peaceful existence within our teritories. And therefore they should be
made to provide labour like the maintanance of roads, bridges and other necessities during disasters. We should use them to
reduce additional budget on our economy.
Political parties should be governed through the Constitution, a mechanism of control and their registration should be stated in
the Constitution. And no political party should be registered based on tribal or sectionalism. It is our preference that we have a
presidential type of government and limitation of presidential powers be clearly incorporated in the Constitution.We propose
that we should not have a Prime Minister's post in the Constitution because even currently, we have a Vice President who is a
leader of government but due to abuse of power and office or misuse of power and office, the President has not allowed the
Vice President to run that portfolio effectively. Therefore, we don’t see if creating a whole new office of the Prime Minister will
make any difference because the abuse is with the people in the office.
Parliament be empowered to provide direction for appointment and reprimands and dismisal of certain key public officers like,
Controller, Auditor General, Attorney General and Chief Justice. Also, Commissioner of Police should be vetted by the
Parliament before the appointments. The other sentiments have already been echoed by some people who have already
represented their views concerning Commission of Judiciary, which should be entirely in charge and responsible for the
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