It appears to be the dead-end for Mwende Mwinzi, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s envoy nominee to South Korea after MPs proposed her nomination be rescinded.
National Assembly Committee on Implementation on Wednesday recommended that the approval made on June 6 by the Defence and Foreign Relations committee be expunged from the report.
Parliament had approved a report by the Defence and Foreign Relations committee , on condition she renounced her US citizenship.
Mwende, who went through the procedural orientation for diplomatic nominees without rescinding her citizenship, went ahead and sued the MPs over the recommendation that she renounces her US nationality before taking up the Korea envoy job.
She argued that the condition was unconstitutional since “an ambassador is not a state officer as provided for in Article 60 of the Constitution”.
“Article 78(3) (b) would only be applicable to people who opted in by applying for citizenship and renunciation would be the process of ‘opting out’,” she argued in her petition.
She further said she is exempted by virtue of Article 78 of the Constitution as she was born in the US and as such cannot renounce her citizenship.
Article 78 (2) of the Constitution says that only those who renounce their citizenship of the foreign nations are allowed to hold public office.
Section 31 (1) of the Leadership and Integrity Act provides that a State officer who acquires dual citizenship shall lose the position.
Subsection two says that a person who holds dual citizenship shall, upon election or appointment to a State office, not take office before officially renouncing their other citizenship in accordance with the provisions of the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act.
However, were she to opt to take the position, the process of denouncing is so tedious, she’d rather not consider the option.
