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{
    "id": 101804,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/101804/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 292,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Abdikadir",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1,
        "legal_name": "Abdikadir Hussein Mohamed",
        "slug": "abdikadir-mohammed"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, actually, I agreed with the hon. Minister that we have those laws. As I enumerated, we have laws dealing with money laundering and proceeds of crime. We also have laws dealing with drug trafficking and substances such as those, murder, rape, kidnapping or any of those major offences. What this proposed Bill is addressing is the organized nature and then dealing with it. So, I think that is important to understand because the Bill is, indeed, correct in listing those offences under Part 2, Section 3 and then pointing out the offences and penalties under Section 4. The reason why I do not agree with putting a minimum is exactly that. The Bill does not deal with a specific offence, for example, called murder. If you are dealing with murder, then you must say, for murder, we must say that we will have a minimum of a life sentence. That would go. For robbery with violence, the law says once convicted, one gets a death sentence. That is already concluded. However, for a Bill like this one, you have a particular minimum, the nature of the organized crimes are completely varied. Some are very minor while some are extremely major. When we say that the minimum sentence should be 15 years, the court would have no option but to give 15 years. The court’s hands being tied might lead to a lot of injustice, which is the reason why the Bill rightly says that the maximum is either life sentence which is in Section 4(2) and that is not a small imprisonment or 14 years which is also not a small number of years. So, I agree with that. That does not in any way say that when you are guilty of murder or robbery with violence or rape, that you should be given one or two years. No! The penalties for those crimes are already known in law and they are severe. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me look at a number of issues concerning the Bill. I will start with the definitions. The first is the definition of “serious crime”. Serious crime means a conduct constituting an offence against the provision of any law in Kenya punishable by a term of imprisonment of, at least, six months. That is not a serious crime under our laws currently. A crime that is punishable by six months is considered a misdemeanor. Misdemeanors are considered to be minor offences. Indeed, any crime that attracts an imprisonment of three years is considered a minor offence and that is how our law is structured. Even the structure of our courts is such that the lowest courts deal in criminal nature with crimes whose punishment is two years or below or a fine of Kshs10,000 or below. Those are the lowest and they are considered very junior subordinate courts or magistrates second class courts. Six months jail offences are considered at the lowest level. These are called petty offences. To make serious crimes is to bring a conflict within the law and this is not a reasonable thing. I think the Minister"
}