Honourable Gitobu Imanyara has crafted a private member’s bill seeking to establish a local tribunal to try PEV perpetrators. This comes after MPs unanimously shot down Martha Karua’s bill proposing the same. What is more, they threatened a repeat performance to Mutula Kilonzo. The turnaround amounts to liking the message but hating the messenger or grabbing ownership of what you hitherto loothed.
Imanyara’s bill comes with the knockout punch that specifically strips the president of immunity. He says his singular goal is to end impunity. So the question follows whether he equates the reigning impunity to the person of the president.
Don’t be vague, let’s go to The Hague was the clarion call of the heard in parliament. They chanted and shouted themselves hoarse but in the long run to show the MPs who the real bosses were, the cabinet disabused them of any pretensions of power and came with the TJRC gimmick.
Imanyara and his ilk may mean all the good things for Kenya. But one is left wondering whether personalizing the crusade against an individual and not the office takes the wind off the legal sails.
Parliamentary dictatorship
What is more, Imanyara intends to give MPs the exclusive power of parliament, executive and judiciary all to themselves. They will debate, legislate and enact the bill without reference to any other branch of government. One would wish MPs were that objective and honest to be trusted with this parliamentary dictatorship.
This impunity hydra mutates into many shapes and forms. Granted, any Kenyan suffocating from yoke would readily and unreservedly support anybody with a blade aimed at any of the monster's many heads. But the double standards and hypocrisy leaves you fearful of another mutant masquerading as a saviour. NA BADO.
