"It is general knowledge that no matter what decision is made by our parliament or any other body, the cases facing our national leaders will only be won or lost at The Hague. No amount of pontificating and threatening will terminate the cases outside of the legal processes provided for in the relevant statutes. There is only one cause to worry, and this touches on the implications of a decision by Kenya’s parliament to repeal the International Crimes Act and withdraw from the Rome Statute. Any decision made by parliament at this time will only apply to future possible cases of crimes against humanity and related cases. What this means is that if in future Kenyans decide to go berserk and butcher each other again on the same scale as we saw in 2008, there will be nowhere to turn. Withdrawal from the Rome Statute will mean that when the current politicians are voted out of office, and we, in our wisdom, elect a bloodthirsty kleptomaniac to be our leader, there will be no safe haven for them if this leader decides to hound them because he doesn’t like how they roll their R’s. With our weak judicial systems and lack of legislative oversight over the executive, this is not a far-fetched scenario. It will therefore behove our political leaders to think more seriously about the decisions they are making today, keeping in mind that some of them are already suffering the consequences of the decisions they took before dissolution of the last parliament. Many current senators, who were in the last parliament, short-shortsightedly voted to emasculate the Senate, and are now crying bitterly about the depleted roles the organ now has. Removing ourselves from the jurisdiction of the ICC at this time is a risky venture, even to the governing elite themselves. As the song goes, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything is alright" Dr Lukoye Atwoli Sunday Nation
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 08:17:48 +0000
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