The Security Laws (Amendment) Bill is now an Act. How it can be assumed to have passed given the utter chaos in parliament is astounding.

The political opposition justifiably contested the whole process, not least the raft of amendments to the amendments supposedly agreed upon in a bipartisan manner following the frantic efforts by both constitutional bodies and civil society to submit on the most egregious of the proposals. And the fact that the parliamentary session opened without it having seen the full order paper. It opted to disrupt proceedings.

Observers were thrown out and live broadcasting halted with each disruption. Outside the House, would-be protesters were not only prevented from approaching parliament, but beaten up and arrested. They have since been charged with illegal assembly and incitement to violence.

None of this deterred the Speaker — one of the most belligerent and partisan in Kenya’s history — from resorting to simply reading out the amendments and assuming them passed by acclamation. And that was that.

The good news relative to the first Bill: Chains of command vertically within security agencies and, more importantly, horizontally across security agencies during security operations during security operations have been clarified.

The right to citizenship is nominally better protected. The Director of Immigration’s power to cancel registration and revoke identification documents is now subject to appeal within 15 days. The right to privacy remains subject to judicial safeguards with the removal of the provision that would’ve enabled intelligence to intercept communications without a warrant.

Freedom of assembly is not, after all, placed in the hands of the Cabinet Secretary for Internal Security, with the removal of the provision that would’ve had that office designate the places and times for any public meeting, let alone protest.

The bad news relative to the first Bill: Freedom of expression is expressly limited for the purposes of avoiding public alarm, incitement or disturbances to the public peace. Sounds reasonable, but the creation of a new criminal offence in respect of covering investigations or security operations remains.

The potential here for limiting the media’s role, the role of oversight bodies and any other critical voice is clear. Think, for example, if this provision had existed during the Westgate Mall attack — would we have been able to see the looting of the mall by the army before our very eyes?

The provision enabling the extension of pre-trial detention beyond 24 hours, even if subject to judicial safeguards remains — the risk of detention without trial is high. And then the bad news.

The unconstitutional redesign of the security architecture remains — bringing the security services back under the control of the executive, enhancing the possibility of politicised interference with and politicised instrumentalisation of the security services.

Not that, to be honest, the security services had seemed to appreciate their constitutional independence from the executive in the first place. But still.

We should be very nervous. Our Constitution has taken a beating. And we will all continue to pay the price.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International’s regional director for East Africa