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{
    "id": 1017136,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1017136/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 249,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "That is something I am asking. I have just asked a question. There are positions which warrant that. The way I am looking at America and I am looking at some countries, I see it is with the President where we allow wisdom, an age going to 70 years or 80 years. You can see the two leading presidential contenders in America are over 74 years old. For the Chief Justice and even the Speaker, I think you should retire if you are tending towards 70 years. That is my thinking. I think you just retire and allow young people like Otiende Amollo who are also lawyers like you to sit on that Chair. Otherwise, how do you help others to grow? That is a question that you may need to ask. By the way, we are going to constitutional amendment. Why the Chief Justice and other judges must go up to 70 years without retire. Sorry I am using you, Hon. Speaker, as an example. You know we have treated you, the lawyers, with kid gloves in this country. The Judicial Service Commission is overpopulated by lawyers, too much lawyers. How can you hold them accountable when you have too many lawyers there? That is why. Let me stop there because I can see the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs is getting agitated. My final remarks or comments is that let us, as MPs, just send a strong message that we have to go back to the people for us to realise the two-thirds gender principle. Through the BBI, let us propose a constitutional amendment. It is because we also cannot just expand this Parliament beyond 349 Members. Where are we heading? There must be a give and take. We must treat the two Houses, the Senate and the National Assembly, as one Parliament. If this House is overstretched, we can get some numbers to the Senate for us to realise the two-thirds gender principle. We have to use proportional representation as a principle of electing Members. If it is first past the post as proposed, take me back home, and even if John Mbadi will not be the next Member of Parliament for Suba South, it will be another man. I guarantee you that."
}