Mr Mugambi, transparency is the key

First, I commit to ensure continuous dialogue, transparency and accountability at the LSK Council. By doing this, we will together ensure that the LSK experiences less sharp divisions as has been the case in recent days. Further, this will ensure that all members' interests are addressed objectively and members' welfare prioritised at all times.—Mugambi Laibuta, Reactivate the Law Society of Kenya

I came across this while looking over the promises of various candidates for office in the Council of the Law Society of Kenya. This one especially captured my mind; it is precise and concise, something that many advocates find difficult to achieve, and, given the other promises floating out there, surprisingly well-written. Whether the author is sincere, only time will tell. I offer my ideas on transparency.

They say that sunshine is the best disinfectant and the Council of the Law Society has been notoriously averse to sunshine. The most controversial decision of the past two years has been the one to finance the International Arbitration Centre from mandatory subscriptions by members of the Law Society. The decision was capricious and the Council's defence of it was high-handed and tone deaf and it split the Law Society right down the middle. Transparency by the Council would have saved everyone this headache.

The first thing the Council should have borne in mind when making the decision to move forward with the IAC is that the Law Society is a membership-driven institution; the welfare of the members supersedes the interests of the Council. If the Council had embraced this truism, it would have published everything related to the IAC, especially after it was challenged by the more youthful members of the Society. Transparency, as contemplated in Article 10 of the Constitution, demands that every scrap of paper related to the IAC would be published so that the members could make an informed decision on whether the Society could move forward with the IAC or not.

If Mr Mugambi is truly committed to bringing transparency into the Council's boardroom, he must campaign, if elected to the Council, for total transparency in the affairs of the Council. Every meeting the Council holds must have its minutes published, voting patterns and all. When the Council expends money—even if it is a hundred shillings for envelopes—in addition to accounting for that hundred shillings, the accounts must be published in full, no detail of how the member's money is expended should be too small. Mr Mugambi should, if he is willing, commit to an era of absolute transparency; the Law Society is not the National Intelligence Service and secrecy is not and should not be its watchword.

There will be an instinct among the more conservative members of the Society and of the Council to reject this proposition out of hand. That is a legacy of the Society's history with betrayal. But that betrayal was because of the self-preservation habit of members of the Council of picking sides in political disputes. Transparency, especially on the conflicts of interest that will arise in the Council, may not eliminate the instinct to pick political sides among members, but it will compel them to think deeply before they let those conflicts rule the roost during deliberations of the Council.

This is the Information Age and the habit of the Council to treat every decision as if it were the results of a conclave to choose the next Pope needs to be jettisoned. Inevitably, all will out. So long as it is written down somewhere, it will not remain secret forever. To reduce the intrigues and the conspiracy theories of the past year, the Council must be absolutely transparent. The incoming Council could set the ball rolling by publishing everything in the Council's possession related to the IAC. That will engender my trust.