A five-judge bench yesterday heard the eight cases challenging the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) referendum where the cases were combined into one.
In submissions made by lawyers representing the 8 groups, the petitioners urged the five-judge bench to use the court’s unlimited powers to dismiss attempts to amend the Constitution.
The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) president, Nelson Havi told the bench that the process to amend the Constitution through BBI has not met the constitutional threshold since majority of views were left out during the first and second round of presentations held by the BBI taskforce.
The petitioners claimed the BBI process was a one man show from the onset terming it a presidential project.
“The president is not the constituted power. There’s no doubt an initiative powered by the president can’t be a popular initiative, ” submitted LSK President Nelson Havi.
According to Havi, parliament, referring to it as a constituted power, is given the power to amend the constitution but they cannot amend the constitution to alter the basic structure designed by the people.
“Its only the people who can alter the basic by way of replacement over constitution with a new constitution,” he said.
Petitioners questioned the BBI process to amend the Constitution terming it a dangerous move.
According to the petitioners who made their presentation virtually, the public was completely locked out from the amendment of the country’s supreme law.
The anti-BBI crusaders insisted that BBI does not reflect the will of the people.
Petitioners also questioned the manner in which the BBI bill was presented to the county assemblies saying it was hurriedly done in a choreographed script to lock out Kenyans especially those with dissenting voices.
Even before the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill 2020 was presented to county assemblies, petitioners faulted the signatures verification exercise by the IEBC saying it was flawed.
The petitioners accused promoters of the bill of using public funds to influence the process to have the country subjected to a referendum yet majority of the clauses can be passed by Parliament.
The defence team has been lined up for today to submit their counter arguments and why the amendment process should go on.
Each petitioner had 30 minutes to submit. The first is Nelson Havi and Esther Angawa representing David Ndii, Jerotich Seii, James Gondi, Wanjiru Gikonyo and Ikal Angelei.