Our parliamentarians should be ashamed of themselves.

This past week, in reaction to the announcement by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court of his two cases and the six names he wishes summoned in respect of them, parliament passed a motion seeking to repeal the International Crimes Act and to have the executive initiate the process of withdrawing from the Rome Statute.

Of all the parliamentarians present, only Martha Karua, the member for Gichugu, had the backbone and the conscience to vote against the motion.

This is the same parliament that voted to accept the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence in its entirety, including its recommendation to establish a Special Tribunal, with mixed Kenyan and international representation at all levels, from investigations to prosecutions to the bench, to try those behind the violence.

But we should not be surprised. Parliament’s betrayal of the survivors and the victims of that violence began right there.

It refused to pass the government’s Bill to establish the Special Tribunal. It refused to pass a private member’s Bill to establish one. Its duplicitous rallying call was then: “Don’t be vague, go for the Hague.”

Clearly, parliament was just trying to buy time. It obviously had no idea that the Office of the Prosecutor would move with the speed that it has.

And, caught flatfooted, it has hit back in the way of dangerously wounded animals.

Not realising that, in doing so, it has only further proven the point about Kenya’s unwillingness to do anything to bring justice to the survivors and victims.

The last week has been a sickening show of both contempt for and ignorance of the law by the House — its members proving themselves to be blithely unconcerned about their lack of support among the public.

They have not been representing the public in their actions.

They have been representing themselves — and their disgusting calculations to retain power for those they have latched their financial and political fortunes to come 2012.

The statements emanating from the MPs — and, lower down, the Councillors who have, in turn, attached their own financial and political fortunes to them — have been almost unbelievable.

The ICC’s Prosecutor was not “ethnically balanced.” “Their” presidential candidates are being “finished.”

Prime Minister Raila Odinga is responsible for this. The prime minister should have been summoned himself.

The Head of the Civil Service is a Meru and there was no violence in Meru.

Minister for Industrialisation Henry Kosgey will be defended by the prime minister and all his merry men in what’s left of the Orange Democratic Movement.

The ICC’s Prosecutor should be issuing summons in respect of the electoral fraud — sorry, “fiasco,” given that the Independent Electoral Review Commission decided, in its wisdom, that we were not mature enough to be able to handle the truth about the elections.

Like I said, apart from being a complete demonstration of contempt and ignorance of the law, it has been disgusting to watch.

Only Martha Karua, the member for Gichugu, has emerged unsoiled.

The ignorance: the Prosecutor has gone where his evidence and witnesses have led him.

Evidence and witnesses are not, by definition, concerned about calculations of “ethnic balance.”

Any would-be presidential candidate summoned is still assumed innocent until proven guilty by the ICC — all he (they are all he) has do is adequately defend himself.

If the evidence and witnesses had pointed to the prime minister, no doubt he would have been summoned himself.

Being a Meru and there having been no violence in Meru has nothing to do with the position that particular Meru held at the time and how he allegedly utilised that position. Again, he is also assumed innocent until proven guilty by the ICC.

There is no need for any party to the Grand Coalition Government to jump to the defence of any of those summoned — they have been summoned in their individual capacity and playing to the ethnic-political gallery with expressions of support has no meaning in a legal sense.

The ICC is not tasked to investigate electoral fraud — we lost that battle when we settled for the IERC’s inane findings.

The cause for disgust and nausea: How dare the Grand Coalition Government even consider utilising public funds (our funds, our hard-earned taxes) to pay for the legal defence of any of the accused?

How dare the ethnic-political cabals on either side of the House ask “their” constituents and supporters to fundraise to this end?

It is not the Grand Coalition Government that’s been summoned. Neither is it the parties to the Grand Coalition Government.

And it is especially not the ethnic communities deemed to be homogenously in support of the would-be presidential candidates apparently being foisted upon them.

Our two Principals should also be ashamed of themselves. Once again, they have failed to whip their parties into shape and lead. Once again, they have let parliament run rogue.

Once again, they have, apparently meekly and weakly but, in fact, ever so calculatedly, let parliament get its hands dirty in their name.

So they can throw up their own hands, supposedly helplessly, and say: Sorry, we ourselves of course understand the need to move forward, but these helpless hands of ours are tied. We are a democracy, after all. And parliament needs to check the executive.

They are all sick. They are sick with the assumption of being above the law.

They are sick from having, too many times, been able to get away with whitewashed investigations, whose feeble and ineffectual findings are quickly swept under the carpet and eventually, if not forgotten, at least rendered unable to touch them.

But it is only check, not yet checkmate. Politically, yes, in the short-term, parliament’s move will give the executive what it needs to drag its feet on co-operation with the ICC.

But, in the longer-term, parliament has alienated itself farther from the people and the world it wishes to remain part of than it seems to realise.

And legally, parliament’s move is meaningless. Utterly meaningless. Whether the International Crimes Act is eventually repealed and whether the executive does move to disengage from the Rome Statute, the fact is that the latter had jurisdiction at the material time.

The cases will continue. And only the strength of the Prosecutor’s evidence and witnesses — and the relative strength of the defence — matter at this point in time.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is the Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC)