Nubian Rights Forum & 2 others v Attorney General & 6 others; Child Welfare Society & 9 others (Interested Parties) [2020] eKLR when using the omnibus Bill mechanism in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2018. Unlike in the case of 2013 Law Society Case where the object of the Bill was clearly indicated as intended to effect minor amendments, in the instant case there was clear indication that the legislature intended to carry amendments on the targeted Acts without the use of the term ‘minor”. It is also clear that from the advertisement of 7th May 2018 that each Act targeted for amendment was linked to the relevant committee. Therefore, in effect, only a part of the amendments and not all of them were subject to stakeholder engagement in the Committees. Coupled with the fact that there was sufficient time availed to the public to give their views on the amendments, we find that there was sufficient public participations in the circumstances of these Petitions. The Use of an Omnibus Bill to Effect the Impugned Amendments 637. The second aspect of the Petitioners’ challenge to the impugned amendments is that it was effected by way of an omnibus miscellaneous statute. In this regard, the 1st Petitioner submits that the violation of the Constitution can occur either through form or content. Its view is that whether the violation is one of form or content, any violation is sufficient for the court to find that an impugned law is unconstitutional. The position taken by the 1st Petitioner is that the impugned amendments were substantive since they were fashioned to overhaul the manner in which registration and identification of Kenyans and foreign nationals is done. They also created a new system of registration and storage of the data. The 1st Petitioner identified the various laws affected by the amendments to demonstrate the far-reaching effects of the changes. 638. Additionally, the 1st Petitioner submits that the implementation of NIIMS affects, in different ways, other aspects regulated by other laws, for example the Children Act, Prevention of Terrorism Act and the National Police Service Act. Moreover, the infrastructural outlay required to implement it is enormous and it further affects many other areas of both national and county governments’ competencies, including provision of services such as health, education and housing. The 1st Petitioner contends that the implementation of NIIMS affects significant aspects of public administration and straddles areas of constitutional competencies of both national and county governments and at least in part, it seeks to implement the 2017 Nouakchott Declaration of the African Union on digitization. 639. In light of these submissions, the 1st Petitioner contends that the use of the miscellaneous amendment process was inappropriate considering that the courts have limited the use of the process for minor and non-controversial amendments. Reliance is placed on the decision in the 2016 Law Society Case where it was held that omnibus amendments in the form of statute law miscellaneous legislations ought to be confined only to minor noncontroversial and generally house-keeping amendments. 640. The 1st Petitioner’s position is that the empowerment of the Respondents by the law to collect sensitive personal information such as DNA and GPS coordinates can neither be minor nor non-controversial. Moreover, the major amendments to the Act involve spending of significant amounts of public funds, involve the introduction of a new registration body and processes, and will prejudicially affect the rights of persons. Such amendments, in the 1st Petitioner’s view, ought not to have been done through a miscellaneous amendment. It is therefore the 1st Petitioner’s submission that the use of miscellaneous amendment process to effect significant amendments to the Act is unconstitutional and to that extent, the amendments are null and void. 641. The 2nd Petitioner supports the position taken by the 1st Petitioner on the use of an omnibus law. It also places reliance on the 2016 Law Society Case for the proposition that the use of the omnibus procedure in the enactment of laws ought to be confined only to minor non-controversial and generally house-keeping amendments. It asserts that the impugned amendments have far-reaching implications on fundamental rights and freedoms protected under the Bill of Rights. In the 2nd Petitioner’s opinion, the impugned amendments not only deserved robust input from the public but were also deserving of better and intense debate and deliberations by the National Assembly and the Senate to ensure proper consideration of all the concerns. http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 101/174