The separation of powers is assumed to be an integral element of contemporary democratic constitutionalism. However, mapping the ideal of the separation of powers onto the complex reality of the modern administrative State is a challenging task. Enforce separation too rigidly, and governance will become impossible. Allow for too much leeway, and you risk a drift towards concentration and centralisation of power. How and where to draw the line has been a vexed question, which constitutional courts across the world have been forced to grapple with.
Introduction
In this context, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Kenya in The Institute for Social Accountability vs The National Assembly (8th August 2022) is a landmark judicial contribution to this global conversation. At issue before the Supreme Court was the constitutionality of the Constituency Development Fund Act of 2013 (as amended by Act No. 36 of 2013) [the “CDF Act”]. In short, the CDF Act created a fund [the “Constituency Development Fund”, or “CDF”], with money up to 2.5% of national government revenue collected in the financial year. The CDF would be used to fund various “community-based projects”, for the benefit of “a widespread cross-section of the inhabitants of a particular area” (s. 22(1)). The implementation of these projects would be monitored by the Constituency Development Fund Committee of the particular constituency (s. 31(3)). Importantly, eight out of ten members of the CDF Committee were to be appointed by the local member of parliament (who was, himself, an ex officio member of the Committee) (s. 24(3)).
The Issues
If we take a step back, therefore, we can see that in simple terms the CDF was (a) a national fund, (b) to be deployed for developmental projects on a constituency-wise basis, and (c) the implementation of the projects was under the effective control of the local MP. To Indian readers, this will be rather familiar: it is quite similar to the MPLAD scheme.
The CDF Act was challenged before the High Court of Kenya, which found it to be unconstitutional. The High Court’s judgment was partially upheld and partially reversed by the Court of Appeal. The case then traveled to the Supreme Court of Kenya, which – by its judgment on 8 August 2022 – also found the CDF Act to be unconstitutional in its entirety.
The gravamen of the substantive challenge before the Kenyan courts can be summed up through the following two propositions: first, the CDF Act undermined the devolved system of government under the Kenyan Constitution, by setting up a parallel, third level of government (at the constituency level), in addition to the national and the county levels, without constitutional sanction (this is essentially a federalism challenge, although – as we shall see – the Court did not analyse it in federal terms); and secondly, the CDF Act violated the separation of powers by granting MPs – who are part of the legislature – essentially executive powers of administration and implementation of developmental projects. There were other – procedural – challenges as well: for instance, it was argued that the CDF Act substantially affected the functioning of county governments. This required it to be scrutinised by the Kenyan Senate (the “Second Chamber”), which – under Article 96 of the Constitution – is tasked with representing the Counties, and safeguarding their interests. This, however, had not been done.
The Involvement of the Senate
On the procedural issue, the Supreme Court found that the 2013 amendment to the CDF Act had transferred the constitutional basis of the CDF from Article 202(2) of the Constitution (which authorises the national government to make “additional allocations” to county governments) to Article 206(2) of the Constitution (which authorises withdrawal of money from the Consolidated Fund). The Court found that this alteration of the constitutional basis of the CDF “had an effect on the functioning of country governments” (paragraph 64). In particular, the CDF Act contemplated that projects would pertain to infrastructural development, such as roads, health, agriculture, and trade, which were within the domain of county governments (paragraph 71). For this reason, the Senate’s involvement was a constitutional pre-requisite, before the CDF Act could have been validly passed (paragraph 72).
While this finding is logical enough, there are two interesting aspects. The first is that in this case, the Speakers of the National Assembly and of the Senate had resolved that the CDF (Amendment) Bill – as it then was – did not concern counties, and therefore, did not need to be tabled before the Senate. The Supreme Court’s response to this was straightforward: it upheld the High Court’s finding that while the decision of the Speaker(s) merited due deference, it did not oust the power of the Court to answer a “question regarding the true nature of legislation.” (paragraph 75) In other words, therefore, despite the Speaker’s position as the leader of the House, their decision on the character of legislation would be subject to judicial review. Naturally, this would apply to other situations as well, such as – for example – classification of bills as Money Bills. The importance of this finding lies in the fact that it allows the judiciary to act as a safeguard against partisan speakers, who can help the ruling party in the First Chamber circumvent the participation of the Second Chamber simply by mis-classifying bills as Money Bills (or, as in this case, as not involving county governments). This is particularly significant, as the Kenyan Constitution does not explicitly guarantee or protect the independence of Speakers. And once again, Indian readers will recall that the exact same issue has been pending before the Supreme Court of India for the last four years.
Secondly, it was argued that the CDF Act offended constitutional design by violating federal principles. The Supreme Court rejected this argument by noting that the Kenyan Constitution was not federal, but a “unitary system of government that decentralises key functions and services to the county unit.” (paragraph 80) It is submitted, with respect, that the distinction between a federal system, and a unitary system with devolution is not an iron-clad one, and there are cases where terminology might obscure more than it reveals. Indeed, if we look at the Supreme Court’s actual analysis on the devolution question (which we shall turn to in a moment), we find that is actually far more respectful of core federal principles than many other “formally” federal polities.
On Devolution
As indicated above, the first core substantive argument before the Court was whether the CDF Act offended the division of functions between national and county governments (see Article 6 of the Constitution). In simpler terms, the issue was whether the CDF Act basically undermined the decentralisation of power guaranteed under the Constitution of Kenya. The Court noted that under Article 95 of the Constitution, the powers of the National Assembly included legislation, oversight over national revenue and its expenditure, and allocation of national revenue between levels of government, but not “the power to implement projects as a service delivery unit at the county level” (paragraph 83). The service delivery mandate was essentially an executive function at the county level, and was therefore meant to be exercised by County Executive Committees which, under Article 179 of the Constitution, were meant to exercise the “executive authority of the County.” Thus, according to the Court:
…where a Member of the National Assembly is allowed to play a role related to functions vested in devolved units, then this will compromise the vertical division of powers between the national and county governments. (paragraph 85)
And in particular:
Subsidiarity is the broad presumption that sub-national governments ought to be assigned those functions and powers which vitally affect the life of the inhabitants and allow the development of the country in accordance with local conditions of sub-national units, while matters of national importance concerning the country as a whole and overarching policy formulation are assigned to the national government. (paragraph 88)
The Supreme Court thus held that the Constitution did not authorise the “national government to … usurp the mandate of the county governments.” (paragraph 90) Nor did it authorise a “third level” of governance, tied to the constituency. Crucially, the Court noted that this was because the constituency – in an electoral system – was tied to the idea of political representation, and not service delivery: in essence the constituency is an electoral unit, with its function tied to the functions vested in an MP; and that role, essentially, is a legislative role. (paragraph 92) For this reason, the CDF Act could not be saved by tying it to the unit of the constituency, as the whole purpose of having “constituencies” in the first place was entirely different. I would respectfully submit that this is a very important finding: a clear separation between the constituency as a unit for political representation, and as a unit of service delivery, provides the conceptual foundation for preventing the concentration of power at the level of the MP: it prevents a situation where MPs serve both as legislators, but also as dispensers of project-linked patronage in their constituencies, and – arguably – prevents the incumbency bias that comes along with placing MPs in charge of disbursal of funds for project development within the constituency.
On the Separation of Powers
Indeed, this last bit was an important feature of the Supreme Court’s separation of powers analysis. Arguments before the Court on this point followed a familiar theme, with the Appellants arguing that the CDF Act violated the separation of powers by vesting executive functions with legislators, and the Respondents arguing that there was no such thing as “pure separation of powers.” However, the Court’s response to this is of particular significance. The Court accepted that the Kenyan Constitution did not follow a “pure” separation of powers model, where the branches of government were hermetically sealed off from one another (indeed, which Constitution does?). However, that did not resolve the question in favour of the Respondents. The crucial question that needed to be asked was what purpose separation of powers was meant to serve in a particular constitutional system, and to derive its content from that analysis.
Here, the Court then found that the purpose of the separation of powers was essentially to prevent concentration:
Kenyans having witnessed excesses of absolute power vested in the Executive branch which operated with abandon and riding roughshod over other state institutions sought to constrain and temper the exercise of public power. Citizens during the pre-2010 dispensation chose to respond to excesses of that legacy by explicitly dividing state power into three branches of government to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. (paragraph 116)
Keeping this in mind, the Supreme Court proposed a two-pronged test for determining when, in a given case, the separation of powers had been violated: first, ask whether a state agency was straying into the “nucleus, core functions, or pre-eminent domain” of another branch of government, from a functional point of view (as discussed in the previous paragraph); and secondly, ask whether the exercise of the impugned power would threaten the values and principles articulated in the Constitution. (paragraph 118) Applying this two-pronged test, the Supreme Court then found, first, that the Constitution was clear about what legislative power entailed: it was representation, legislation, and oversight over the government (paragraph 120). Under the CDF Act, however, through the Constituency Development Fund Committee, MPs were “in effective control [of the Committee] and that means that he/she influences the selection, prioritization of projects, allocation of funds and also monitors the implementation of the projects.” (paragraph 124) Therefore:
This means that the Fund, as conceived under the CDF Act 2013, vested in the Legislature and its personnel – being the Members of the National Assembly, functions that typically fall within the nucleus, core function, or pre-eminent domain of the Executive branch. (paragraph 124)
What of the separation of powers in terms of constitutional values and principles? Here, the Court found that a core function of the separation of powers was to bring about a system of checks and balances, leading to accountability and good governance. At the heart of this was the avoidance of conflict of interest. However, the CDF Act created an open conflict of interest by giving to MPs a personal stake in the determination and implementation of projects out of the National Assembly’s CDF fund. In other words, MPs could not effectively perform their oversight functions over the use of the Fund, if they themselves stood to benefit politically from decisions about its implementation (paragraph 127). Thus, the Court summed up by holding that:
We, therefore, find that a Fund operating outside the strictures of separation of powers and the system of checks and balances would not be constrained given the absence of legislative oversight and therefore would be prone to be abused. In effect, a Fund that allows personnel from the Legislative branch to exercise executive powers is problematic from a constitutional lens. In the context of this case, we adopt the view that the constitutional scheme on separation of powers should be upheld given its implication for underlying constitutional values; that is, the maintenance of accountability and good governance. Were we to adopt a contrary approach, as urged by the respondents, even for the best of policy reasons, these constitutional values and principles will be eroded. (paragraph 129)
Comparing Institute for Social Accountability and Bhim Singh
The rigorous and in-depth analysis of the Supreme Court of Kenya stands out particularly starkly when we compare it with the judgment of the Indian Supreme Court in Bhim Singh, where the constitutionality of the MPLAD scheme was challenged (I have briefly analysed this case here). On the issue of the separation of powers, the Supreme Court repeated the mantra of there being no “strict” separation of powers, that “each one of the arms at times perform other functions as well“, and that “it is quite logical for the Member of Parliament to carry out developmental activities to the constituencies they represent” (needless to say, there was no explanation forthcoming for why this proposition is “quite logical”, because – unlike the Supreme Court of Kenya, there was no analysis of the role played by the “constituency” in the political process).
The Supreme Court also repelled the separation of powers challenge by noting that under the scheme the power of the MP was a “recommendatory” power, with the decision about which projects to implement lying with the district authority. Once again, though, the judgment of the Kenyan Supreme Court shows us how a Court need not equate form with substance: even under the CDF Act, the relevant MP was not directly implementing projects, as though he or she was a personal administrator. Rather, what the Court found was that the scheme, as a whole, gave to an MP a measure of effective control over how projects were selected and implemented. It is abundantly clear that MPLAD – in slightly different ways – has the same effect.
The federalism challenge was dealt with by the Supreme Court in similarly superficial fashion, by noting that India is a “quasi-federation”; indeed, it is particularly ironic that the Supreme Court of India used the mantra of the “quasi-federation” to avoid any serious analysis of whether the MPLAD scheme violated the Constitution, while on the other hand, the Supreme Court of Kenya – even while insisting that the Constitution of Kenya is unitary – engaged in a much more detailed consideration of whether the CDF Fund violated the devolved scheme of powers between national and county governments set up under the Constitution of Kenya. One can only wonder what the outcome of Bhim Singh would have been, had the Indian Supreme Court taken a principled approach towards the separation of powers and federalism under the Constitution, rather than a box-checking exercise.
Conclusion
In my view, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Kenya in Institute for Social Accountability vs The National Assembly is a landmark judgment, that makes many significant contributions to the global conversation around constitutional democracy. Among the highlights are: (a) the Supreme Court’s finding that the Speaker’s classification of bills is subject to judicial review, especially in situations where the participation of the Second Chamber turns upon how a bill is classified; (b) the Supreme Court’s clear analysis of the role of the constituency as a unity of political representation, and not of service delivery – and the consequences this has for the powers of MPs; (c) the Court’s principled, two-pronged test for when functional separation of powers is violated, and – in particular – its emphasis on preventing concentration of power and enabling accountability as the basis of the doctrine; and (d) its application of the principle to the case at hand, including the articulation of the distinction between legislative functions and executive functions.
Indeed, if we read the judgment as a whole, what comes through most clearly is the Supreme Court’s pushback against a blurring of legislative and executive functions in a way that makes the constitutional terrain the site of a centralising drift. Although the Court doesn’t say so in as many words, its insistence on articulating the doctrine of separation of powers in a way that gives it “analytical bite” shows a clear preoccupation with preserving the Constitution as a check upon the centralisation of power. In this, there are lessons for all of us, around the world.
[My thanks to Joshua Malidzo Nyawa for giving this piece a once-over.]