{"id":13439,"date":"2020-08-27T18:27:09","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T18:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/kenya\/?p=13439"},"modified":"2020-08-27T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T18:27:09","slug":"we-should-seize-covid-moment-to-change-the-law-says-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/policy\/we-should-seize-covid-moment-to-change-the-law-says-president","title":{"rendered":"We should seize Covid moment to change the law, says president"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author: Jacob Ng\u2019etich<\/strong>
\nAfricaPress-Kenya:<\/strong> A day before the 10th anniversary of the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday signalled the inevitability of constitutional change in the coming days.<\/p>\n

And with indications that the country is gearing up for full reopening of all sectors, a referendum could be in the offing.\u00a0While addressing the nation, President Kenyatta offered yet another justification for changing the supreme law, saying its very drafters had noted that it was \u201cwork in progress\u201d.\u00a0The day before this and in a television interview, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga expressed similar views, saying a referendum was inevitable.<\/p>\n

Uhuru said in the past, all the country\u2019s constitutions have been cease-fire documents, agreements created to dodge confrontation and civil conflict and that was the reason it represented a constant argument between the past and the present.\u00a0\u201cTen years later, the moment to improve on it is \u2013 now.<\/p>\n

And as I said in my Madaraka Day Speech, we must not succumb to the paralysis of constitutional rigidity. We must treat a Constitution as a living document that must constantly adjust to our emerging realities,\u201d said President Kenyatta.<\/p>\n

He said the Constitution had been hailed, the world-over, as one of the most progressive in the world. And this is because it embodied what a social contract between people of different origins and their government should be.\u00a0However, it also reminded the country that if the past is constantly at war with the present, then there is a need to review it.<\/p>\n

The president said instead of a cease-fire document that enforces a zero-sum game in which the winner takes it all, the moment called the country to create a constitutional order that will long endure.<\/p>\n