Showing posts with label Women Representation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women Representation. Show all posts
Friday, 21 September 2012
Forget the two thirds rule, lets split this 50-50!
A while back I wrote a blog post on an issue that is proving to be thorny. In case you missed it, read it here http://joymdivo.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-third-two-thirds-what-is-difference.html. The Constitution of Kenya 2010 in Article 81 introduced an interesting concept in this East African nation: Gender Parity by Law. This meant that society did not have the luxury of time in deciding to accept women as capable leaders. They did not have the option of giving women a chance and seeing them prove themselves so that they can get another chance. They were told, that from August 27th 2010 henceforth, no appointive or elective office shall be occupied by more than two thirds of the same gender.
When it comes to appointed posts, achieving this is easy since the appointing authority just has to remember their mathematics class on fractions and division. However, elective posts are more tricky since they depend on the adult suffrage to make this decision, and not all of them are good mathematicians. Therefore there is need a formula to ensure that even when the public do their math, it adds up to the principle of not more than two thirds of one gender being elected. The members of the 10th parliament were so keen on consolidating their position that while they provided for mechanism to ensure this is achieved in the Senate and in the County Assemblies, they left the National Assembly open.
Chapter 8 of the Constitution establishes our Bi-Cameral House. Article 97 sets out that we shall elect 290 MPs, 47 Women, 12 Special interest nominees and the Speaker. This week a meeting between the Commissions responsible for implementing the Constitution as well as the Parliamentary Committee agreed on a "formula" that we proceed as put in the constitution, and if we fail to make the numbers, then parties should be allowed to nominate more women to make up the difference. The net result is that we have potential to have a lower House of more than 500 members. This plan was rejected by Members of Parliament in their Speaker's Kamukunji, but the stalemate remains, what do we do about this?
My suggestion to get out of this quagmire is simply this. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to scrap ALL constituencies. If we will have Wards each with a Representative in the County Assembly, the bread and butter issues of the Citizens will be dealt with closer to home in the County Assembly. Therefore the role of the Constituency is not as central as it was before. Since Governors and Senators will be seeking mandate from the whole County, so too should Members of Parliament. Each County therefore should produce one Male and one Female Member of Parliament, and we still retain the 12 special interest seats. That way, not only is the Constitutional Provision preserved, we will have a House with a total of 107 members. Not only can we better afford 107 members, as compared to 350 members the playing field will be levelled for all persons seeking elective posts, since they will have Countywide support.
Given the vast powers that the National Assembly will have, it is vital for the people going there to have the widest base possible as is with the Senators. Each Party only has to nominate one man and one woman to go on the ballot, and each stand equal chance of being elected. It is time for the Members of the 10th Parliament to wake up and smell the coffee. We did not get rid of dictatorship by the President to swap it with dictatorship by Parliament. We are not interested if some of them "lose" their seats since they are not theirs to keep, but ours to give to whom we please. Time has come for them to put Kenya ahead of their own selfish interests and make the right decision for Kenya. Let us go 50-50, one man one woman. And save us some money in the process, we need to pay the teachers, and doctors, and nurses, and lecturers and civil servants.....
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
One-third, two-thirds what is the difference?
I have had a very interesting and eye opening experience today. In Kenya, there is the case currently in Court about the nominations to the brand new never been seen before in Kenya Supreme Court. For the benefit of those who do not know what this is, let me break this down for you. We passed a new Constitution last year that stipulated in it that the composition of all elective and appointive bodies will have to have no more than two thirds of one gender. The Supreme Court nominations have Two Women and Five Men. Has the requirement to not have more than two thirds of one gender been met?
The Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya Chapter (FIDA-Kenya) has led a group of several womens organisations to challenge this balance as failing to meet the Constitutional provisions. The Chief Justice has appointed some reputable Human rights lawyers to defend the Judicial Service Commission in the matter. Till now, I was a casual observer to this circus, since as you can tell from my earlier posts, my beef with the JSC was on a different tangent, but today they are not lucky, I am on their back again!
Let us do the math. Two thirds of 7 will give you 4.67 people. One third will give you 2.33. Now we know there are no .33 people (duh!) so how do we resolve the impasse? Article 81(2) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 reads as follows.
81. The electoral system shall comply with the following principles––
(b) not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender;
This means any number less than or equal to two thirds is within the Constitutional confines. It therefore follows, any such overflow, must be rounded down to ensure the threshold is met. This means therefore if you have 4.67 rounded off to 5 people, 5 is more than the two thirds MAXIMUM and therefore it cannot be Constitutional. Meaning, .67 takes it over and above and therefore is unconstitutional. The only solution is to round it off to 4 so that the number of the opposite gender comes up to 3 meeting the threshold of NOT MORE THAN two thirds.
The argument has been on women attaining the one third threshold, but that premise is misleading. The constitution gives the maximum, and it cannot be exceeded even by one person. Not getting it yet? Let me try it another way. Having 5 members of one gender in a 7 member Court translates to 71.43% of the court being represented by one gender. Having 2 members of one gender in a 7 member Court translates to 28.57%. Two thirds would be 66.67%, meaning the current composition of the Supreme Court is 4.76% OVER the allowed constitutional maximum. This may seem like a small difference but just think of it this way. We are to have a National Assembly with 350 members. If it were to be 4.76% off, instead of having 233.33 members of one gender topping the two thirds maximum, you would have 16.6 more members, making the new number 250. That is 17 members over the limit, but the same 4.76%
I know either you have a eureka moment, or you are shaking your head wondering what I am on about. The moral of this whole story is this. The Supreme Court appointments may look like the are off not even by a whole person, so why the big deal. Think of a protractor, where you measure one degree from another is a single convergent point, but as the lines elongate, it becomes apparent that a degree from another travel very different paths and if you meet them after one kilometre, they will be so far apart. A builder puts a plumbline to determine whether a wall is straight, because even the smallest deviation, could see the whole structure collapse. If we are implementing this constitution, lets do it right, otherwise, in future the mess will be bigger than we could have imagined, and may be too late for us to fix. God bless y'all, as usual, the big children need me to pick them up or the school will fine me 500/= for late pick-up. (seriously, they fine us if we pick the children up late!!)
The Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya Chapter (FIDA-Kenya) has led a group of several womens organisations to challenge this balance as failing to meet the Constitutional provisions. The Chief Justice has appointed some reputable Human rights lawyers to defend the Judicial Service Commission in the matter. Till now, I was a casual observer to this circus, since as you can tell from my earlier posts, my beef with the JSC was on a different tangent, but today they are not lucky, I am on their back again!
Let us do the math. Two thirds of 7 will give you 4.67 people. One third will give you 2.33. Now we know there are no .33 people (duh!) so how do we resolve the impasse? Article 81(2) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 reads as follows.
81. The electoral system shall comply with the following principles––
(b) not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender;
This means any number less than or equal to two thirds is within the Constitutional confines. It therefore follows, any such overflow, must be rounded down to ensure the threshold is met. This means therefore if you have 4.67 rounded off to 5 people, 5 is more than the two thirds MAXIMUM and therefore it cannot be Constitutional. Meaning, .67 takes it over and above and therefore is unconstitutional. The only solution is to round it off to 4 so that the number of the opposite gender comes up to 3 meeting the threshold of NOT MORE THAN two thirds.
The argument has been on women attaining the one third threshold, but that premise is misleading. The constitution gives the maximum, and it cannot be exceeded even by one person. Not getting it yet? Let me try it another way. Having 5 members of one gender in a 7 member Court translates to 71.43% of the court being represented by one gender. Having 2 members of one gender in a 7 member Court translates to 28.57%. Two thirds would be 66.67%, meaning the current composition of the Supreme Court is 4.76% OVER the allowed constitutional maximum. This may seem like a small difference but just think of it this way. We are to have a National Assembly with 350 members. If it were to be 4.76% off, instead of having 233.33 members of one gender topping the two thirds maximum, you would have 16.6 more members, making the new number 250. That is 17 members over the limit, but the same 4.76%
I know either you have a eureka moment, or you are shaking your head wondering what I am on about. The moral of this whole story is this. The Supreme Court appointments may look like the are off not even by a whole person, so why the big deal. Think of a protractor, where you measure one degree from another is a single convergent point, but as the lines elongate, it becomes apparent that a degree from another travel very different paths and if you meet them after one kilometre, they will be so far apart. A builder puts a plumbline to determine whether a wall is straight, because even the smallest deviation, could see the whole structure collapse. If we are implementing this constitution, lets do it right, otherwise, in future the mess will be bigger than we could have imagined, and may be too late for us to fix. God bless y'all, as usual, the big children need me to pick them up or the school will fine me 500/= for late pick-up. (seriously, they fine us if we pick the children up late!!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)