(Bloomberg) -- Kenya faces a historic decision to close parliament for failing to enact rules on fair gender representation in public bodies.
Chief Justice David Maraga advised President Uhuru Kenyatta to dissolve the legislature after receiving six petitions on the matter. Lawmakers were supposed to have implemented the legislation by 2015, five years after Kenya adopted a new constitution that includes a requirement for more women representatives in leadership.
It's a “brave and precedent-setting move from CJ Maraga,” said Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy and international development at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. “The political class will seek to find a way to avert this, because if parliament is disbanded it will mean fresh elections.”
The constitution requires that no more than two-thirds of members of elective and appointive public bodies be of the same gender.
Kenya's bicameral parliament falls short of the required gender ratio, according to the National Gender and Equality Commission. The National Assembly has 349 members, of which 76, or about 22%, are women, while only 21, or 31%, of the 67-member Senate are female.
Maraga's advice leaves Kenyatta with the choice of either complying and triggering a series of by-elections, or defying him and risk having new laws challenged in court. The impasse threatens to bring Kenyatta's legislative agenda to a halt two years before his term ends.
Women should have a greater say in tackling challenges the country faces, said Damaris Seleina Parsitau, director of the Institute of Women, Gender & Development Studies at Egerton University in Kenya's rift valley region. “Any society that is gender inclusive is a better society,” she said.
Building Bridges
National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi challenged Maraga's guidance, saying the state, and not parliament alone, is responsible for enacting legislation on gender quotas.
“The Kenyan parliament has been wrongly castigated for failure to enact the relevant legislation,” he said in a statement published in the Standard newspaper on Tuesday.
State House spokeswoman Kanze Dena didn't immediately respond to calls and a message requesting comment.
With his second five-year term expiring in 2022, Kenyatta needs parliament's backing to fulfill his so-called Big Four program to build more houses, improve health-care and boost manufacturing and farming output. Implementing the plan may require lawmakers to approve more borrowing at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is curbing government revenue.
Maraga's advice also comes as Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga put the final touches on a plan to overhaul the way the country is governed. Under the so-called Building Bridges Initiative, they're proposing replacing the winner-takes-all electoral system that's spawned ethnic violence with a more inclusive government that would include a reintroduced post of prime minister.
“Parliament is critical to the BBI agenda,” said Bobby Mkangi, a lawyer who was part of the committee of experts who drafted the new constitution. In addition, not heeding Maraga's advise might be interpreted as “gross violation of the constitution” by the president, he said.
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