Majority leader Aden Duale.[Photo/the-star.co.ke]
A debate has arisen following the recent dewhipping of four members.
There are also reports that the honourable members have also filed a suit in court challenging the decision of Jubilee Party to dewhip its members and a court order has been issued barring the dewhipping of the said members.
There are a couple of truisms relating to dewhipping of members that find their legal basis in our constitution and the standing orders -
1. The determination of whether to discharge a member from a committee lies only with the party that sponsored a Member to Parliament. It is therefore within the internal affairs of a party to determine whether or not to dewhip a member.
2. Pursuant to standing order 173, it is also the parliamentary party that sponsored a Member to Parliament that has the mandate to nominate a member to a committee. Simply put, Jubilee or NASA as the case may be, determine which member should be in which committee. It is this determination that the Committee on Selection relies on in selecting members to committees.
3. The parliamentary party that sponsors a member to a committee also has jurisdiction to discharge a member from a committee.The standings orders are clear in particular standing order 176 which provides that a parliamentary party may discharge a member from a committee.
4. The standing order further provides that the parliamentary party whip of the member is then required to give notice in writing to the speaker of the intention to discharge the member from the committee.The speaker is then required, within three days of receipt of the notice, to inform the member.
5. The member subsequently stands discharged from the committee and if aggrieved by the decision of his party he may opt to have the matter resolved by the Political Parties Tribunal which is established under Political Parties Act, 2011.
6.The idea behind standing order 176 is to uphold party discipline and this explains why discharge of members from committees is a prerogative of a party. This is the practice even in comparable jurisdictions.
7. Discharge of members by political parties has indeed been a practice applied before by political parties including. In the 11th Parliament, ODM discharged several members including honourable Ababu Namwamba when he was dew-hipped from the Public Accounts Committee which he served as chair. The Committee on Privileges also barred five members from being appointed as members of the PAC Committee once reconstituted.
7. In judicial review application No.129 of 2015 filed by Hon. Ababu Namwamba, the court observed - and I quote - that the National Assembly had the responsibility of taking action and the court would be crossing it's boundaries were it to direct the National Assembly on the manner it ought to handle the matter.
8.The issue of dewhipping four of it's members is therefore an issue that falls squarely under the authority of the Jubilee Party.
9. Suffice it to say, Jubilee Party has several options it can explore, including reconstituting its committees, and this is an inherent right recognised for all parliamentary parties in the National Assembly standing orders. The party will explore all options in order to ensure regional balance and inclusiveness is observed in constitution of committees.This is what Jubilee stands for.