The Haiti deployment puzzle: Questions on deal to deploy police officers to Haiti abound

Even before the ink on the Kenya-Haiti 'Reciprocal Agreement' on police deployment can dry up there are already concerns about what shape reciprocity will take.

Reciprocating country is defined under The National Police Service Act as: "any country which the President may, being satisfied that the law of that country contains provisions reciprocal to this Part and that Kenya is or shall be declared a reciprocating country for the purpose of those provisions, by notice in the Gazette, declare to be a reciprocating country for the purposes of this Part."

But does Haiti meet this legal test?

"It therefore appears highly improbable that there can be an Act that allows reciprocity with Kenya.  If you look at Section 107 as read with 108 of the National Police Service Act, the failure to have a reciprocity accord with Haiti based on Haitian law, might not be satisfied. It is highly unlikely that the Haitians have a law in place," says  Dr Evans Ogada, Lecturer in International Law.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has been in power since the assassination of Jovenel Moise has no Parliament with elected representatives of the people, and disbanded the electoral body, dismissed the country’s Chief Prosecutor and since the expiry of his temporary mandate a year ago rules by decree. 

It is not therefore clear how the agreement signed at State House, Nairobi will be ratified by Haiti.

"Failure to have legal approval by Haitian Parliament and not having benefitted from a vote by the Haitian people, Ariel Henry is basically on illegal and unconstitutional basis as Prime Minister," adds Ogada.

While the law does not prohibit the deployment of police outside Kenya, crucial Constitutional steps have not been undertaken, as the law prescribes.

 "Unfortunately, this treaty for all intense and purposes appears not to have conformed with the requirements of Treaty making and ratification Act including the requirement of public participation. And therefore, such a treaty entered into in this manner, will amount to an illegality," he adds.

Former Defense Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa has challenged the Government to reconsider the planned deployment due to domestic insecucity challenges.

"Askari wetu kutoka Kenya hadi Haiti is over 12,000 kilometers, that distance across the Atlantic does not make sense that we send our officers na hapa karibu Baringo, hapa Samburu watu wetu wanauwawa kwa sababu hakuna askari wa kutosha hapa Samburu," he says.

The planned deployment which according to the government is meant to restore law and order in the Caribbean Country has been subject to scrutiny, including Kenya’s geo-political goal interest, and in the midst of rising insecurity incidences and a police-public ratio way below the required UN standard.