Focus on Muturi as Senate seeks to declare 400 laws obsolete
By Rawlings, May 5, 2023
The validity of some 400 laws could be in jeopardy after a Senate committee rejected some 1,764 regulations that operationalise them.
Senate Committee on Delegated Legislation in its report tabled on the floor of the House, rejected Attorney General Justin Muturi’s request to extend expiry period of the regulations for at least one year.
Should the House agree with the Committee, more than 400 Acts of Parliament will be rendered invalid, placing Muturi’s reign into sharp focus.
Committee, chaired by Tharaka Nithi Senator Mwenda Gataya (pictured), argues that the 1,764 regulations stand revoked in law.
“The Statutory Instruments Act does not give the Attorney General the power to make a regulation extending the operation of a statutory Instruments rule on behalf of a responsible Cabinet Secretary,” said Gataya when he moved the debate on the report.
Under Kenyan law, it is the regulations that operationalise Acts of Parliament and once the regulations have expired, the Acts become moribund.
Muturi had requested for the extension of IEBC Act, Political Parties Act, Supreme Court Act, Judicial Service Act, Criminal Procedure Code Act, Presidential Retirement Benefits Act, Traffic Act, Land Control Act and Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act respectively. While moving the motion on the rejection of the legal notice, Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana argued that the matter of extension of such a large number of instruments is weighty and requires judicious and thorough scrutiny in consultation with the relevant regulation-making authorities.
Senators argued that it would have been important for the committee to scrutinise the instruments and understand whether the regulations were still relevant and ensure there was proper justification and well-grounded legal reasoning for their extension.
While rejecting the request, the Senators described the move by AG as unlawful and misinterpretation of the procedure laid out in the Statutory Instruments Act and recommended to the House that the legal notice be annulled.