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{
"id": 1493632,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493632/?format=api",
"text_counter": 69,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Suna East, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Junet Mohamed",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Hon. Deputy Speaker, I want to seek your indulgence on a matter that… Hon. Temporary Speaker, when I saw a black man, I knew there was a change of the Chair. I want to bring to the attention of the House a matter that is very important. As you are aware, our main business is legislation. One of the biggest predicaments we have faced on issues of legislation is public participation. I want the House to take note of the Supreme Court ruling which happened the other day, on the Finance Bill, which had been suspended by the courts. The Bench at the Supreme Court did some thorough work. I want to congratulate them because they laid the basis and foundation for proper public participation. I want to urge Hon. Members to read that judgement because it has helped this country. It has cleared the path for Parliament to do proper legislation. For the last 10 years or so, since the new Constitution was enacted, Parliament could not do its business. For any legislation or Act of Parliament that was assented to by the President, somebody would go to the High Court which then would declare that Act unconstitutional. In actual sense, an Act can have 73 or 80 clauses but, instead of a judge declaring that 10 or 15 clauses have a problem, many a times, judges would declare Acts of Parliament unconstitutional. I read the judgement of the Supreme Court last night and it gave me a lot of hope. I must bring to the attention of Hon. Members that the country is going in the right direction in terms of legislation. One of the best things the Supreme Court said is that Parliament does not have to convince the public on what they are doing. They just need to inform them. We do not have to convince them because we are here to legislate on behalf of Kenyans. We are exercising the sovereign power that is delegated to us. The Supreme Court judges, in their own wisdom, said that we just need to inform the public. They do not have to agree with you because legislation is not done in public. It is done on the Floor of this House. One thing that shocked me about public participation is that a judge declared an Act of Parliament unconstitutional. He said that the advert that was released to the public was done in English and not Kiswahili and yet, he was delivering his judgement in English. He did not do it in Kiswahili. Without belabouring the matter, it is time for the Public Participation Bill to come to this Floor of the House. The Supreme Court has spoken on it. It has cleared the path. Now we need to get a proper Public Participation Bill on the Floor of the House so that we can dispense of that matter once and for all. Kenyans have suffered in the sense that any legislation that is made by their representatives is normally declared null and void by the courts. The courts are legislating through the back door. That matter must come to a rest. I want the Leader of the Majority Party to weigh in on this matter. I am also concerned about the issue of femicide. Our women are being killed kienyeji . Today, one has been killed and her body parts thrown in Lang’ata, though she resided in Eastleigh. We also need to talk about that matter. Let the Leader of the Majority Party leader pronounce himself on the issue of the Supreme Court and public participation. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker."
},
{
"id": 1493633,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493633/?format=api",
"text_counter": 70,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Let me first commend the Leader of the Minority Party, Hon. Junet Mohamed, for raising this issue on the matter of the judgment. I also take this opportunity to commend the Supreme Court. The architecture of our Constitution, and we must thank God that under the 2010 Constitution, the Supreme Court came into being. As an advisory court, they have now set the pace, as Hon. Junet Mohammed has said, for us to enact substantive legislation to guide our public The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1493634,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493634/?format=api",
"text_counter": 71,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
"speaker": null,
"content": "participation exercises in the legislative processes of this House, the Senate, and our county assemblies. I want to agree with the Leader of the Minority Party that in line with Article 2 of our Constitution, the people may exercise their sovereign power either directly or through their democratically elected representatives, and those democratically elected representatives are the men and women who sit in this House and the Senate but, more so, in this House because this House represents the people. That is why you will find also in this Constitution, that many of the Bills that emanate from this House can become law without going to the Senate. We represent the people while our Senate colleagues represent our counties. That is why the Constitution provides that Bills that touch on counties and county governments go to the Senate. They may also emanate from the Senate but must be completed in this House. I have always argued, since 2013, when we adopted the bicameral Parliament system, that we do not need to belabour which House is superior to the other. If one House can enact legislation and it becomes law by itself, and the other House cannot enact legislation and it becomes law by itself and it has to go to the other House, then it goes without saying which House is the Upper House. That is not the point though. The point is that public participation has been abused by a number of our judges, especially in the High Court. I must commend the Supreme Court and those other judges who have exercised judicial restraint in determining what constitutes good public participation. I have read previous judgments on qualitative and quantitative analysis of what is good public participation, but the Supreme Court now has put it very well. I want to agree with Hon. Junet that it was misconstrued that public participation is a referendum. During the public participation exercise of the impeachment process of the former Deputy President, some argued that way. Some believed that we were going to carry out a referendum exercise. Public participation involves going to the public to collate the views of the public, but it is still up to the Members of Parliament to consider the views of the members of the public, and they may not necessarily be the right views. It is said that opinions are as many as…. I do not want to say what they say out there. You know what they say, that opinions are as varied as you know what, and everybody has theirs. Therefore, regardless of the many views we collect from the public, the onus is still on us as lawmakers to consider all those views and balance them against what the legislation that we are making seeks to achieve. I will take you back to the Finance Bill, 2024. I have seen the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning bring several proposals. They were very good proposals that were carried in the Finance Bill 2024. We went out to collect views and the Member for Molo, Hon. Kimani Kuria, spent, I think, close to 14 days seated in County Hall, listening to Kenyans. They came in their numbers to give views. They said they do not want taxation on bread. They also said they do not want to see taxation on motor vehicles. Kimani Kuria and the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning did a Report which was tabled and adopted by this House in the Second Reading, agreeing with members of the public that there should be no taxation on bread and motor vehicles. Kenyans from the manufacturing industry appeared before the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning and told them that we are killing our manufacturing industry in Kenya because we are encouraging more imports than local manufacturing. It was players in the manufacturing industry, through the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) and the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), that brought proposals that would protect our local manufacturing industry. They made proposals to levy excise duty on completed or finished products being imported from China, the Far East and Europe, including diapers and sanitary towels. But what happened? The public was incited to believe that this House was levying tax on all diapers and sanitary towels. Our young daughters were telling us in their parlance out there that: “ HawaWabunge hata hawataki tunyeshe sasa” . It was embarrassing to watch our teenage daughters The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1493635,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493635/?format=api",
"text_counter": 72,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
"speaker": null,
"content": "tell us that: “ Hatutaki wanyeshe”, while it was them that we sought to protect. It is our young mothers, daughters, our sisters we sought to protect from cheap, finished products of sanitary towels, which nobody can authenticate how hygienic they are in terms of the standards that they have been manufactured under in the West and the Far East. Some of those Far East countries have no standards. You get what you pay for. That is what we sought to levy excise duty on so that we protect that local manufacturer who is manufacturing sanitary towels in Mlolongo, Ruiru, Juja or Nakuru. It is the farmer in Western Kenya and parts of Nyanza, that we sought to protect, who have now been given BT cotton seed to produce cotton for the value addition of those manufacturing industries. It is the Kenyan youth who are on the streets we sought to protect to create jobs for them in those factories, but what did we do? We were told to reject. We rejected it, and we lost jobs. We exported jobs to the Far East. No wonder when the Cabinet Secretary for Labour and Social Protection, Dr Alfred Mutua, announced 3,000 jobs in Qatar, 30,000 Kenyans turned up at Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC). I want to plead with Kenyans and, more so, our fourth estate to be responsible in how we communicate with our people. We end up misleading our people. At times, even political leaders are guilty of this. We end up saying what we think is popular with the public, but not what is right. I have said this before that what is right is not necessarily what is popular. With regard to public participation, I want to ask all our committees that when we embark on public participation, our work is to listen to the views of the public, balance them against the legislative proposals that we have and the policies that we seek to anchor that legislation on. It is upon a Member of Parliament, upon being elected, for example, the Member for Kajiado South, the people of Kajiado South believe that he is the best among their people and they entrusted him to come and legislate on their behalf. Therefore, they expect the Member for Kajiado South or the Member for Kikuyu to know better. By knowing better, they should know a certain legislative proposal that is before the House is anchored on the policy of import substitution. Therefore, you must balance the question of import substitution and the policy of import substitution against the legislative or the tax proposals that are being made, vis-a-vis the interests of business people who are importing cheap products that endanger our women and young girls. It is only these honourable men and women in this House who can do that. In conclusion, let me inform the Leader of the Minority Party that the Office of the Attorney-General is in the wee hours of finalising the Public Participation Bill. A substantive Bill that is now even further informed by what the Supreme Court has said will guide our public participation exercise moving forward, so that we do not find many of the statutes that we enact into law in both Houses being rendered unconstitutional based on public participation. With those few remarks, let me conclude by commending the honourable ladies and gentlemen in the Supreme Court who rendered that judgement that was very well informed. We can now comfortably say that the Supreme Court has men and women who weighed in on the issues that will guide our country very well moving into the future. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker."
},
{
"id": 1493636,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493636/?format=api",
"text_counter": 73,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "South Mugirango, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Silvanus Osoro",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I also want to join the Leader of the Minority Party and the Leader of the Majority Party in commending and appreciating the judgement that was made by the highest bench — the Supreme Court — regarding public participation. Just like the Leader of the Minority Party has said, this can only be compared to a study in jurisprudence that you and I know on a particular case, the Spelunking Explorers. Due to lack of written law and quality jurisprudence that would have either convicted or acquitted the Spelunking Explorers, there arose confusion in the bench. The Chief Justice could hardly make The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1493637,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493637/?format=api",
"text_counter": 74,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "South Mugirango, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Silvanus Osoro",
"speaker": null,
"content": "decisions in that case. We found a positivist on the bench - and I think it was Justice King. We also found a clear naturalist and one we even never wanted to touch. This question of public participation has brought a lot of confusion within our courts. There are differences in views of the judges. One judge's view in Kajiado High Court differs from the one in Kisii, Kerugoya, Mombasa, and another one in South Mugirango — and very soon we will get to a High Court. We are lucky to have a magistrate's court at the moment. When you read such judgment, you will then be left wondering which particular judgment to refer to when you are creating your jurisprudence in terms of making public participation worthwhile. That is why the Supreme Court needed to come up with a clear distinction on what this House ought to do in terms of public participation. What we are suffering from is what I would call judicial activism, and I say this with tremendous respect to members of the Judiciary, where some members of the Judiciary decided to be activists and start making populist decisions. In fact, you would even be forgiven if you actually predict the outcome and then it comes exactly as it is. You would even have seen conversations on social media on how a judge would interpret this public participation direction and the following day, when you read that judgment, it turns out exactly as it was written by some people on social media. That is mere judicial activism! The direction the Supreme Court has actually given us, as far as public participation is concerned, the right jurisprudence. But, again, I challenge this House to expedite the process of creating this law on public participation and create parameters; in as much as now we are using the jurisprudence that has been created. It is important for this House to expedite such laws and the Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs is here and is well noting. We should expedite such a process so that we do not have similar confusions in future where the same procedure used on a particular Bill is rendered mute while a similar procedure that has been used on a different Bill has gone through a similar procedure and is passed and enacted into law. That kind of confusion could not be explained. We had lost quality on making our jurisprudence in courts and we really must commend the honourable judges for coming up with such very serious directions as far as this jurisprudence is concerned. Thank you very much."
},
{
"id": 1493638,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493638/?format=api",
"text_counter": 75,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 1565,
"legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
"slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
},
"content": " Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs."
},
{
"id": 1493639,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493639/?format=api",
"text_counter": 76,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you very much."
},
{
"id": 1493640,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493640/?format=api",
"text_counter": 77,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": "( Hon. Parashina Sakimba spoke off the record)"
},
{
"id": 1493641,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493641/?format=api",
"text_counter": 78,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 1565,
"legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
"slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
},
"content": " I have not allowed you to speak. It takes the Speaker to recognise you. When the Speaker does not allow you and you insist, you become disorderly and it may cost your presence this afternoon. So, you are not yet recognised. Let Hon. Murugara proceed."
}
]
}