There are at least four reasons why President William Ruto’s cabinet is unconstitutional. First, the cabinet fails the foundational composition rule of not more than two-thirds of the same gender. Two, the cabinet fails the Article 130(2) test that requires the national executive to reflect regional and ethnic balance. Three, some cabinet members fail the Chapter Six of the constitution test on leadership and integrity, tainting the entirety of the cabinet. Four, and finally, the creation of two cabinet-level portfolios is not only illegal but also indignifies women, contrary to Article 28 of the constitution.
I will not discuss chapter six issues in this piece as they require acres of space on their own. I discuss the other three.
Two-thirds gender rule
It is unfortunate that, in 2022, a cabinet formed by a president who without end hollers about his belief in the rule of law, does not meet the bare constitutional gender minimum of not more than two-thirds. It is both a maths issue and a constitutional subterfuge issue.
First, the math issue.
Article 152(a) clearly defines and caps the membership of cabinet. Cabinet comprises of the president, the deputy president, not more than 22 cabinet secretaries and the attorney general. Essentially, the ceiling is 25 members. No more. But this number could be less, because the president can appoint as few as 14 cabinet secretaries. Ruto used all his 22 cabinet cards and more. The more—two positions—he christened “cabinet-level portfolios” on gender and national security and assigned women to superintend them.
Now, here is the problem. Article 27(8) establishes a two-third gender ceiling rule on the composition of any state or public body. The courts have said that the cabinet is a body for the purpose of Article 27(8) gender-capping. Ruto and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua are men. Justin Muturi, AG-nominee, is also a man. Additionally, of the 22 cabinet secretary nominees, 15 are men. Hence, of the 25 cabinet slots, 18 are reserved for men and 7 for women. In the case of Marilyn Kamuru versus Attorney General decided by Justice Onguto in 2015, the Judge said that Article 27(8) math would require computing the number of the lesser gender against the entirety of the cabinet including the president, deputy president and the AG. For Ruto’s cabinet then, the 7 women would be the numerator against a denominator of the total and maximum 25 cabinet slots. This results in 72 per cent men in cabinet whereas the constitutional cap should, at the minimum, limit them to not more than 66 per cent.
Now, on to the subterfuge.
I know there are those who will ask what about the two cabinet-level portfolios and the secretary to the cabinet who are all women. Again, the comprehensive response is to be found in Articles 152(a) and 154 of the constitution. Article 152 caps the number at 25. In that capping it does not say that secretary to the cabinet is a cabinet member. Article 154 tells us who a secretary to the cabinet is. It is an office in public service but, unlike Article 152 which explicitly says that the AG is a member of the cabinet, Article 154 does not make a secretary to the cabinet a member of the cabinet.
And this is where Ruto commits a constitutional subterfuge. By explicitly naming the four positions—the two advisers, the secretary to the cabinet, and the AG—as cabinet-level portfolios, he was constitutionally mixing apples, oranges and tomatoes. But it seems the intention was to dangle a red-herring both regarding the two-third math and the legality of the two offices. In fact, his supporters misleadingly insist that in computing the two-third rule, the three portfolios—that is, the two cabinet-level advisers and the secretary to the cabinet—should be factored in.
This is how smart people try to circumvent the constitution. But the constitution is quite conscious that public officers will try such tricks so it says—and the court has confirmed—that its violation can be direct or through effect. Both levels of violations are present here.
Regional and ethnic balance
This is straightforward albeit controversial. Article 130(2) says that the composition of the national executive shall reflect the regional and ethnic diversity of the people of Kenya. Again, it is a little more than a bean counting exercise.
The two critical operative elements are ethnic and regional. Regional is obviously geographic although the constitution does not delineate what a region is. It leaves that to common sense, practice, rhetoric and legitimate expectation. In this regard, and in our political rhetoric, there is a region christened Mt Kenya. While defined to some extent by proximity to the mountain (Mount Kenya), it also imports into its defining characteristic some ethnic component. So, while Isiolo may be closer to Mt Kenya than Kiambu, the majority of communities resident in Isiolo are not legitimately and in political rhetoric terms considered to be part of Mt Kenya. On the other hand, Kiambu people are, even though they are much further away from Mt Kenya than Isiolo is. But this is where it gets even messier: I believe if you are a GEMA community member living in Isiolo, you are considered Mt Kenya. The opposite is not true. You may wish to argue this point, but it is one of those facts that make political but hardly any logical sense; still, the constitution would recognize the argument in the context of Article 130(2).
Article 130(2) says that the composition of the national executive shall reflect the regional and ethnic diversity of the people of Kenya.
In this sense, it is possible that some of the members from the GEMA group who have been nominated to the cabinet may identify as hailing from the Rift Valley or from elsewhere in the country. But when Article 130(2) is purposively read, a question arises whether the numbers of those included in the cabinet who are from Mt Kenya region, or are from one of the pre-dominant Mt Kenya regional ethnic groups (when one considers the demographics and diversity of the country), disproportionately constitute the cabinet. My answer is yes.
Illegal cabinet-level portfolios
This is not about the attorney general or the secretary to the cabinet. As I have explained above, the constitution explicitly says that the AG is a member of the cabinet. Article 154 also creates the position of secretary to the cabinet, although it does not make the holder a member of the cabinet. Whether the position of secretary to the cabinet is a cabinet-level portfolio is a discussion for another day. What I am interested in here is the legality of the other two cabinet-level portfolios Ruto has created on gender and national security.
The constitution and the law are explicit on how state office or offices in public service are to be created. The constitution is also implicitly inundated with the logic of circumscribing a strict criteria and processes of creating such offices, among them to curb wastage of public funds by creating unnecessary or duplicative offices.
The agency with the power to create a public office is the Public Service Commission (PSC). True, the president may request the PSC to create a position in public service—but when he does so, the PSC is required to conduct a thoroughgoing needs assessment to determine whether the position is necessary. The constitution anticipates this and the courts have said as much. If, in fact, the two positions are offices in public service, the strict requirements of Article 234 have not been complied with.
The constitution and the law are explicit on how state office or offices in public service are to be created.
There are only two other avenues through which Ruto could have created the two offices. The first is under Article 234(4) which allows the PSC to create a position of “personal staff” to the president. We shall settle this quickly because it would be oxymoronic to argue that a “cabinet-level portfolio” is a “personal staff” position for the president. In any event, did the PSC sanction it?
The second avenue is to be found under Article 260, which provides that parliament can create a state office but even then only through legislation. Question: under which law are the two offices created?
Dignity
Constituting a cabinet is perhaps one of the most intense of boardroom wheeler-dealer activities. It is, for instance, hard to find the logic why, for example, Ababu Namwamba was assigned the sports and youth docket while Alfred Mutua was assigned foreign affairs. However, at times, the constitution is able to find logic in some of these nocturnal deals and I think, in this case it would easily discover the logic behind why the two tentative and illegal positions of cabinet-level portfolios ended up with women as nominees.
Article 28 is about human dignity. If there are two positions to be assigned, one that is constitutionally recognized and secured and the other constitutionally suspect and tentative, it is no secret that being appointed to the constitutionally secure position is more dignifying. Historically, and as Ruto has demonstrated with his list of cabinet nominees, women are always an afterthought when allocating consequential positions of leadership. This is not conjecture. Instead, it is a compelling argument under Article 259 of our constitution, a provision that requires the constitution to be interpreted in a purposive way. It is a position also supported by many other relevant and endless re-enforcing provisions of the constitution. So, the two most tentative positions are ultimately assigned to women, because, after all, in the animal farm context (but not under the 2010 constitution), all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Plum as the positions may seem, in contextual terms they raise an Article 28 issue. An issue of human dignity.
What to do?
There are two ways to deal with these constitutional infirmities. One: Ruto can withdraw his list and amend it accordingly to comply with the constitution. If he is too married to this strange concept of “cabinet-level portfolios” he should at least push some of the Mt Kenya men there and move the women to the real cabinet portfolios. We can then deal with the illegalities of where the men end up later. But that may all be wishful thinking.
Historically, and as Ruto has demonstrated with his list of cabinet nominees, women are always an afterthought when allocating consequential positions of leadership.
Second: In the Marilyn Muthoni case, Justice Onguto chastised the national assembly for aiding and abetting Uhuru (gleefully, may I add) in violating the constitution by failing to conduct, during the vetting of cabinet secretary nominees, a “strict scrutiny” (the judge’s words) on the constitutional compliance of the composition of cabinet for gender, regional and other factors – but primarily gender because the pith of the case was the violation of the two-third gender rule.
Moses Wetangula and the national assembly will soon have a choice to make: whether their primary allegiance and loyalty is to William Ruto or to the constitution.
