Belgut Member of Parliament (MP) Nelson Koech has faulted the High Court’s decision to declare the planned deployment of Kenyan police officers to wartorn Haiti as illegal.
In a ruling delivered on Friday, Justice Chacha Mwita said the National Security Council has no mandate to deploy police officers to another country.
“Any decision by any state organ or state officer to deploy police officers to Haiti… contravenes the constitution and the law and is therefore unconstitutional, illegal and invalid,” said Justice Chacha.
MP Koech has rebutted the decision arguing that the ruling was made in haste and the government, through Attorney General (AG) Justin Muturi, will appeal the case.
“We need our officers to go out. Kenya is going to miss a golden opportunity to showcase its other side of being a peace anchor in the region. I think the Attorney General should very quickly appeal this case,” he said in an interview on Monday.
The legislator further opined that the deployment of officers to peacekeeping missions is not a novelty to Kenya as it has troops in other war-torn regions within the East African block.
“It is not the first mission that this country has done. As we are talking now we have more than 1000 police officers out there in Somalia some in Southern Sudan so to say that you cannot have police go for this mission, in my own view, was totally not being fair to this administration.”
Speaking in the same panel discussion, Narok Senator Ledama Olekina noted that the government should hold discussions with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and deliberate on the guidelines provided on deployment of troops.
He further urged the State to follow the law when fronting their appeal on the court’s decision.
This lies on the backdrop of the government’s assertion that they will appeal the court’s decision.
Government Spokesman Dr. Isaac Mwaura, in a statement, said that although the administration respects the rule of law, it is determined to bring peace to the Caribbean nation hence will not abandon that mission easily.
“The government of Kenya takes note of the High court’s ruling regarding the deployment of the Kenya police to help in the Multi-national Security Support (MSS) mission for the restoration of law and order in Haiti,” he said.
“While the government respects the rule of law, we have however made the decision to challenge the high court’s verdict forthwith.”
The National Security Council (NSC), in October last year, petitioned Parliament to approve the deployment of Kenyan police officers on a UN-backed security mission to war-torn Haiti. The National Assembly has since okayed the deployment.
Kenya has pledged to deploy 1,000 security personnel for the mission seeking to combat a decades-long gang violence characterized by widespread murders, kidnappings and extortion.
The UNSC gave the go-ahead in early October for the deployment of a multi-national security support mission, led by Kenya, to help the overwhelmed Haitian police.
