Saving the soul of an African constitution: Learning from Kenya’s experience with constitutionalism during COVID-19

Abstract

On 27 August 2010 Kenyans celebrated the promulgation of a new Constitution. This Constitution aimed at fundamentally transforming the governance framework through far-reaching institutional, administrative, legal and policy reforms. Ten years later this Constitution was put to the test when the government of Kenya reported the first COVID-19 case. In this article the authors argue that even though Kenya put in place a transformative Constitution intended to consolidate the rule of law, democracy, human rights and governance, the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic questioned the transformative character of the Constitution and exposed inherent contradictions embodied in the Constitution. The article demonstrates that the Constitution is a double-edged sword, a site of tension and contradiction, on the one hand, and a site of hope and transformation, on the other.