Kenya

Abstract

At long last Kenya has a revised Constitution. Since it achieved independence in 1963, the country's Constitution has been mutilated beyond recognition by no less than ten amendments, which include some very major ones, such as the abolition of the Upper House, the Senate, and the abolition of "regionalism". The long title of The Constitution of Kenya Act 1969 (No. 5 of 1969) is "An Act of Parliament to amend the Constitution of the Republic of Kenya and to reproduce the said Constitution in a revised form, and for purposes incidental thereto". The revised Constitution is contained in a Schedule to the Act, which apart from incorporating the amendments, revises the Order of the Chapters, and in a few cases alters the language and content of the provisions. It will not be possible to deal in this short review with the new revised Constitution as a whole, but for the convenience of the reader, I reproduce in an annex to this chapter, the Act itself, and also the Arrangements of Sections of the new Constitution to give the reader some idea of its new structure.