72
supportive of an interpretation of the constitution that provided for an elected
Guurti,
“According to our constitution, they should have been elected also. There’s nowhere in
the constitution or any act that suggests that they should be selected by clans...we have
an article in the constitution that says members of the
Guurti
should be elected.”
116
•
Role and Remit of the
Guurti
: Participants felt that the
Guurti’s
functions and powers
now exceeded their original intent of dealing with “religious culture and religion, peace
and conflict resolution issues.” There is a perceived contradiction between the powers
given to the
Guurti
in the constitution and its reason for existence, with participants and
interviewees supporting a reduced role for the
Guurti
and constitutional provisions
which reflect this. There was support for revising the entry requirements for the
Guurti
in order to address this mismatch by ensuring members were “up to the job,” according
to one interviewee.
117
•
Women’s Political Participation: Some participants prioritized constitutional change due
to the need for the constitution to “incorporate women’s rights and access to political
participation,” for instance through a women’s quota for parliamentary seats.
Further, participants were keen to highlight that the limitations of both the constitution and
existing legislation hinder their ability to oversee and scrutinize the executive:
118
•
Constitutional Provisions for an Independent Judiciary: According to one participant,
“as parliament, we cannot do our function to scrutinize the government activities unless
we have independent judiciary. As the constitution is today, we cannot have
independent judiciary unless we change the constitution. So, the system of checks and
balance in our system of government is not workable as it is today in our constitution
because the executive nominates all members of the judiciary and expels or discharge
them according to his wish. If there’s no independent judiciary, you cannot have a
check and balance.”
•
Accountability between the Executive and Parliament: Participants felt that parliament
was not able to fulfill its scrutiny role because it was unable to hold individual ministers
accountable, and that provisions in the constitution needed to be changed in order to
facilitate this role. While parliament must approve ministerial appointments it has “no
power to remove them if they are incompetent.” Participants also mentioned their
ability to scrutinize the budget and ministerial spending was constrained due to
constitutional provisions which place the auditor general under the Ministry of Finance,
“so he is not accountable to the public.”
116
Unlike the other three entities (president, House of Representatives and local councils) there is no electoral law
that governs the selection process of new members of the
Guurti
. A selection process must either be based on a
system of nomination or of direct election.
117
See previous category – internal management and organization.
118
This overlaps with the legislative capacity category.
