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"id": 1013191,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
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"legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
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"content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. What Hon. Aden Duale has raised is very fundamental and it requires your ruling. But before you make your ruling, I just have comments to make. Number one, our rules of procedure and Standing Orders are very clear about issues of constitutionality of any Bill or Motion. That at any stage, even at the Committee of the whole House or the Third Reading, if a Bill is found to infringe the provisions of the Constitution, you can still make a determination to have that dealt with at that stage. So, it is perfectly in order for Hon. Aden Duale to raise issues of constitutionality at this point in time. Two, Hon. Speaker, we must be very careful with this issue of public participation. In the 2010 Constitution, out of excitement and out of the experience we had with the previous regime, there was a feeling in this country that we did not need the institutions. That the institution of Parliament was an evil institution, the Executive was evil, all the institutions, including the Judiciary. So, we found a lot of provisions in the Constitution, which looking at them critically, offend the very basic principles of democracy. Article 1 of the Constitution talks about the people of Kenya exercising their power, either directly or through the democratically elected representatives. Ours is a representative democracy. Once the power to legislate is given to an institution, or to the people’s representatives, you cannot take it away. In fact, even where we borrowed this public participation concept, I see what happens in the United States of America (USA), you see how the Congress deals with, what they call, public hearing; the evidence taking. It just simply means public committee sittings where witnesses are invited to appear before the committee. In this case, witnesses are anybody. So, let us not take the responsibility of Parliament and give it to another institution. This is representative democracy. There is no taxation without representation. I sit here on behalf of the people of Suba South. It is expected that when I speak the people of Suba South have spoken and whatever decision I take, they have endorsed. If they have a problem with the decisions that I make for the five years, they have another way of getting me out and electing someone who would represent them more effectively. In fact, even in law, even if we made it is very difficult, there is a recall clause that if your constituents see that you are persistently and continuously making decisions that they do not like, they would recall you. Some of us who are making some mistakes here and there, you should be careful because you can be recalled. Hon. Speaker, something that Hon. Aden Duale has raised, which we should not lose sight of, is Article 124, which recognised that this is an independent arm of Government. We are the only ones who can make rules, procedures and regulations, which govern our operations as a House. You cannot take such a responsibility and bestow it onto another arm of Government. In fact, the intention was to make the three arms of Government operate independently, but interdependently. But that does not mean we can allow the Office of the Attorney General to prescribe rules on how we conduct our business. That is unthinkable and unheard of. If we start on that trajectory, we are compromising the very cardinal principle of separation of powers in the three arms of Government. 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."
}