Top Court Halts Kenyan President’s Bid to Amend Constitution

(Bloomberg) -- Kenya's Supreme Court scuttled President Uhuru Kenyatta's push to reshape the structure of the government, effectively halting plans to hold a referendum on the proposed changes.

The judgment upheld rulings by two lower courts that the president can't seek constitutional amendments through a popular initiative, meaning Kenyatta acted illegally in spearheading the proposals.

“The Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill of 2020 is unconstitutional,” Chief Justice Martha Koome said in a live broadcast of proceedings in the capital, Nairobi, on Thursday.

The case relates to the so-called Building Bridges Initiative, or BBI, which resulted from a rapprochement between Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga following a bitterly contested election in 2017. The initiative envisaged reintroducing the role of prime minister and two deputies and allowing the nation's counties greater financial autonomy, as a way of promoting cohesion and ensuring inclusive development.

READ: Kenyan Court Backs Ruling Against Plan to Reshape Government

Kenyatta is due to step down after elections in August and has indicated that he will back Odinga's bid for the presidency. Odinga is likely to face off against Deputy President William Ruto, who fell out with his boss and has publicly criticized the BBI program on the grounds that it wouldn't necessarily foster national cohesion. Plans to introduce a judicial ombudsman would infringe on the independence of the judiciary, he said.

“We demand an apology for wasting four years in an expensive unconstitutional and selfish process,” Ruto said in a statement on Friday.

Even if the judgment had been in favor of the proposed changes, it would have come too late to hold a referendum before the August vote, but its timing may secure Ruto some political mileage ahead of the vote.

Election Violence

Kenyatta and Odinga said their proposals were meant to make the government more inclusive and replace a winner-takes-all electoral system that they blamed for stoking ethnic violence in the past. Violence has marred elections in Kenya since the return of multi-party rule in 1992 and peaked in 2007, when more than 1,300 people died and 350,000 others were forced to flee their homes following a disputed outcome.

Odinga said the verdict showed that “every state organ must always subject itself to the people of Kenya and must never usurp their sovereignty by substituting their will with that of state officers and state organs.”

Odinga may try to reintroduce the proposals if he wins the election, according to Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham. The ruling will add to the stature of the already respected Supreme Court, because it will be viewed as an institution that stands up to power, he said.

“If it is seen to have come under political pressure to reverse the lower court decision and approve BBI, this could damage its legitimacy going in to an election that is likely to be controversial and contested,” he said.