Judgment No. CCZ 10/2018
Const. Application No. CCZ 80/2016
What must be determined in order to found the jurisdiction of this Court is
whether the proceedings in casu raise a constitutional question within the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Court. The first aspect is not disputed. The applicants allege that three
specific constitutional obligations were breached in the passage of the impugned
legislation: the Bill in question was not gazetted; the Bill was not examined by the PLC;
and there was no public participation as required by the Constitution before the Bill was
passed by Parliament. There can be no doubt that these are constitutional questions
pertaining to the fulfilment or otherwise of constitutional requirements.
The next critical aspect is whether these constitutional questions fall
within the exclusive jurisdiction of this Court. Do they revolve around the fulfilment of
purely procedural requisites that are susceptible to the review jurisdiction of the High
Court, or possibly the Supreme Court, and therefore outside the sole domain of this
Court? Or do they concern the failure to fulfil constitutional obligations within the
contemplation of s 167(2)(d) so as to render them amenable to the exclusive jurisdiction
of this Court?
In King’s case (supra), which is strenuously relied upon by Mr Uriri, the
Supreme Court of Appeal drew a clear distinction between procedural prerequisites and
constitutional duties. The court contrasted:
“legal limitations that arise from procedural prerequisites and from other
limitations of legislative power with those that derive from the imposition of
duties.” [my emphasis]
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