Cabinet report complicated
VICE-PRESIDENT Gilbert Bukenya will present the views of Cabinet to the Constitutional Review Commission on September 19.
VICE-PRESIDENT Gilbert Bukenya will present the views of Cabinet to the Constitutional Review Commission on September 19.
Last month Cabinet under the chairmanship of President Museveni decided that it would recommend to the CRC that the limits on presidential terms should be lifted and that federo should be restored in Buganda.
There is nothing wrong with these points of view. However, their expression is complicated by the fact that Cabinet is the primary organ of the executive and the appointing authority.
The then Justice Minister Mayanja Nkangi appointed the CRC in 2001 to review what changes were needed in the Constitution.
Now the present minister Janat Mukwaya is saying that she cannot present the Cabinet’s report to the CRC because she is the appointing authority. That is why Bukenya must deliver it. But sending Bukenya just papers over the inescapable fact that Cabinet was the appointing authority in 2001 and the minister merely acted on its behalf.
The CRC and its chairman Prof Frederick Sempebwa now find themselves in a tricky position.
Cabinet asked them in 2001 to report back on what changes were necessary. Then just as they were about to report, Cabinet recommended to the CRC that presidential term limits be lifted and federo restored.
Is that an instruction or a recommendation? Can the recommendation of the appointing authority be disregarded?
Each minister could have made personal submissions to the CRC but Cabinet chose to file its proposals in its collective institutional capacity as the highest organ of the executive.
Yet if the CRC review is not to be
pre-empted, Sempebwa should treat the Cabinet proposals as just one submission among many.
Last month Cabinet under the chairmanship of President Museveni decided that it would recommend to the CRC that the limits on presidential terms should be lifted and that federo should be restored in Buganda.
There is nothing wrong with these points of view. However, their expression is complicated by the fact that Cabinet is the primary organ of the executive and the appointing authority.
The then Justice Minister Mayanja Nkangi appointed the CRC in 2001 to review what changes were needed in the Constitution.
Now the present minister Janat Mukwaya is saying that she cannot present the Cabinet’s report to the CRC because she is the appointing authority. That is why Bukenya must deliver it. But sending Bukenya just papers over the inescapable fact that Cabinet was the appointing authority in 2001 and the minister merely acted on its behalf.
The CRC and its chairman Prof Frederick Sempebwa now find themselves in a tricky position.
Cabinet asked them in 2001 to report back on what changes were necessary. Then just as they were about to report, Cabinet recommended to the CRC that presidential term limits be lifted and federo restored.
Is that an instruction or a recommendation? Can the recommendation of the appointing authority be disregarded?
Each minister could have made personal submissions to the CRC but Cabinet chose to file its proposals in its collective institutional capacity as the highest organ of the executive.
Yet if the CRC review is not to be
pre-empted, Sempebwa should treat the Cabinet proposals as just one submission among many.