EDITORIAL: Citizens should stop slide into dictatorship
What you need to know:
President has issued an executive order to reorganise the government that touches on the other arms of government and independent institutions.
The institutions include the Judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
Chief Justice David Maraga quickly challenged the directive on the grounds that the Executive had no jurisdictional powers over the Judiciary and JSC.
Two related developments this week reinforce a growing feeling that the current administration is steadily pushing the country back to the imperial presidency jettisoned under the 2010 Constitution. Unless checked, the manoeuvres will erode all the democratic gains of years of painful and gallant struggles.
One, President Uhuru Kenyatta convened a Jubilee Party Parliamentary Group meeting whose outcome was to change the leadership of National Assembly committees. That came hot on the heels of a similar machination for the Senate. The net effect of that is that Parliament, which is constitutionally independent, is being controlled by the Executive. That is an affront to the principle of separation of powers and antithetical to democracy.
