The Commission participated in the multi-sectoral consultative engagement meeting for electoral legal reforms in Nakuru, which was organized by the Electoral Law Governance Institute for Africa (ELGIA) and was attended by Chairpersons and Members of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committees of National Assembly and Senate on 5th to 9th September, 2023.
The Commission Secretary/CEO, Marjan Hussein Marjan, lauded the Kenya Law Reform Commission for aiding the Commission to draft bills and amendments on election laws and the Office of Registrar of Political parties (ORPP) for continuous collaboration and facilitation of political parties’ processes and election related activities. Further, he appreciated ELGIA for supporting the Commission in electoral legal reforms noting that the process upon conclusion will yield proposals that will inform the electoral legal framework and foster democracy moving forward.
The Commission pointed out the Referendum Bill, Election Campaign Financing (Amendment) Bill and the IEBC (Amendment) Bill on Boundaries Delimitation, which were developed and presented to the 12th Parliament prior to 2022 General Election, had never been enacted into law.
The Commission has since revised all these bills together with others and the Draft Regulations to have an enabling legislative framework as some of these statutory instruments are staring at the risk of lapsing pursuant to Section 21 of the Statutory Instruments Act, 2012.
“We invite the participants to interrogate the electoral legal framework for the process of the review of boundaries, consider gaps in key electoral laws, discuss challenges encountered in implementation of the law, suggest proposals for review and build a collaborative roadmap with meaningful public participation plan to ensure timely enactment ahead of boundary delimitation,” said Marjan.
The Commission has the Boundaries Review Operations Plan (BROP) 2019 – 2024, which outlines timelines for the intended review and whose constitutional deadline is 5th March 2024. “The Commission has since undertaken some activities in preparation for delimitation of boundaries including the collection of the base sub-location geo-database and the review and capture of GPS coordinates of the gazetted registration centers which were used in preparation for the 2022 General Election,” added Marjan.
He further observed that the Commission faces myriad challenges to meet the Constitutional timelines for boundary delimitation including lack of a substantive Chairperson and members of the Commission to guide on operational, policy and strategic direction.
“However, now that members of JLAC from both houses are here, we hope they will fast-track the enactment of the proposals into law once the Commission submits the drafts to Parliament for consideration. We hope the same will be done in good time. I have no doubt that JLAC will shepherd the realization of this noble objective,” said Marjan.