Article 25 and the Shabaab.

This is the argument: let us limit the application of the Bill of Rights, win the war on terror and then restore the Bill of Rights to its rightful place in the pantheon of laws that Kenya has enacted. Sounds right, right? Reasonable, cogent, simple. (Forgive me, please, as I wipe the spittle off of my lips.)

That is what every government in the world wants. The only difference between the theocracy in Iran or Vatican City and the US federal government is that the former two are appointed by God Himself and take their orders from Him. In all other respects, especially the desire to determine when the phrase "national security" should act as a statutory fig leaf for human rights' violations, remains strikingly similar.

Apologists for the scheme to limit the rights of terror suspects in Kenya would have you believe that "as soon as the war is won, we will restore full rights to every Kenyan." Or similar assurances. You will notice one curious thing about these apologists: they are not the victims of suspicious government attention of their activities. They are free to go where they choose, live where they choose, associate with whom they choose, without the forces of law and order taking an inordinate interest in their affairs. They have not been victims of police encounters that ended in death or grievous bodily harm. They are more likely to be treated with kid gloves when they are in conflict with the law - and they often are.

It might have been accidental or inadvertent, but the primacy of the Bill of Rights is assured by the procedure required to amend it, and the requirements for a limitation of any of the rights enshrined in it. And then there is Article 25 which is explicit about the rights that cannot be limited, not by law, not by forces of law and order, and not by the courts. Among the tools that the US government relied on in its global war on terror were torture, or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of enemy combatants. We promulgated a constitution that explicitly forbids this, because these powers have rarely been used against terrorists but against the law-abiding civilian population as in Mt Elgon and Wagalla.

These quasi-constitutional lawyers need adult supervision. Narrowly focused on the need to find and kill the enemy, we have frequently become the enemy of the government. In this war against error, every Kenyan is a threat and not just the combatants of the Shabaab. But so long as you have the wherewithal to "contribute" to the "efforts" of the women and women who make political decisions in the securocracy, you are unlikely to be troubled by the securocracy's activities. If you have the temerity to be poor, to come from the wrong ethnic community or to live in the wrong district, whether or not you are  sympathiser of Kenya's enemies, you will increasingly feel the unwavering attention of the long arm of the law on your back, and this attention will not give two shits about Article 25 if some Kenyans have anything to say about it.