‘Religious Organization Bill an over-kill, not needed’-SUPKEM
He cited the composition of the proposed Religious Affairs Commission, stating that it is heavily skewed towards Christians, and this could undermine the interests of other faiths.
The Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) has castigated plans to introduce a new law to control religious organisations, noting that existing legislation in the Societies Act adequately addressed matters related to religious organizations.
In its submission on the Religious Organizations Bill 2024, the council said the scope of the law, as contained in the Societies Act, included registration, regulation, and oversight of religious organisations, suggesting that the law can further be strengthened to take care of existing gaps.
Through its national chairman, Al Haji Hassan Ole Naado, the council pointed out that the Religious Organizations Bill 2024 has not expressed any shortcomings of the Societies Act, and therefore, there was no reason for introducing new legislation to provide for what is already existing under the current law.
“It is the Supreme Council’s position that, since we have the Societies Act, the Religious Organizations Bill is a legislative overkill, hence we should abandon it altogether. We don’t need it,” said the chairman.
While the Bill contained some useful proposals, such as the establishment of a Religious Affairs Dispute Tribunal, he said the provision can be adopted as part of the gap-filling efforts to strengthen the Societies Act.
The Draft Religious Organisation Bill 2024 and the Draft Religious Policy, 2024 are currently undergoing public participation. The proposed legislations emanated from a presidential task force report on the Review of the legal and Regulatory Framework Governing Religious organisations in Kenya. The task force led by Rev. Mutava Musyimi was put in place following the Shakahola tragedy, where a Church Pastor, Paul Mckenzie is accused of killing more than 400 people through starvation.
Ole Naado further poked holes into the Bill, stating that some of its provisions were a clear affront against the constitution on non-discrimination and equal protection under the law.
He cited the composition of the proposed Religious Affairs Commission, stating that it is heavily skewed towards Christians, and this could undermine the interests of other faiths.
“The Supreme Council has noted that representation on the Commission is heavily skewed in favour of Christian religions, with the Christian faith in its diversity allocated a combined representation by three (3) persons while the Islamic faith in its diversity is allocated only one (1) person,” he said.
Together with government representation in the Commission, he said, Muslims will be heavily outnumbered, 8 to 1. In addition, the chairman said it was unfair to allocate Muslims the same number of seats with Hindus who do not even make up one percent of the population.
“The Supreme Council finds this allocation of representation on the Commission discriminatory and in violation of the provisions of Article 27 of the Constitution of Kenya on non-discrimination,” he said.
While the new law was proposed to prevent a repeat of the Shakahola massacre, Ole Naado made it clear that there are adequate laws in place to address the root causes of the horrific killings other than introducing new legislation.
“What we know is that Shakahola happened because duty bearers slept on the job, and not because there was not any law to prevent the occurrence of that unfortunate tragedy,” he said adding that existing laws such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act could take care of the excesses of the Shakahola tragedy.
“For these reasons, the proposed Religious Organizations Act 2024 is unnecessary, hence we don’t need it,’ Hassan Ole Naado said in his parting shot.
The proposed law also seeks to establish umbrella religious organizations that will be mandated to oversee and regulate religious organizations registered under them, develop a theological training curriculum and a code of conduct for religious leaders. Other functions of the umbrella organizations will be to set theological qualifications for religious leaders as well as review doctrines and religious teachings.