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{
    "id": 1030843,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1030843/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 214,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13219,
        "legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
        "slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
    },
    "content": "The Committee held substantive deliberations and has made various observations on the proposed constitutional amendments as contained in the BBI Report, as is detailed in the Statement that I am presenting to the House. Additionally, the Committee has made proposals with a view to further achieve the objectives of the BBI Report, which is, to protect the interests of counties and the enhanced important role of the Senate as set out in this Statement. I want to make it very clear from the onset that it is the view of the Committee that Constitutional amendments should never divide a country, but unite the country. We have borrowed the experiences from many jurisdictions that have made attempts to amend their constitution. An attempt to amend a Constitution should not elicit division or fights amongst citizens of a country. We looked at various jurisdictions where attempts have been made to amend the constitution with the result being that whenever the proposed amendment is carried, the country remains united and when the vote is lost, the country still remains united. We looked at jurisdictions that have legal framework of amending the Constitution through referendum and picked out the case of Australia. We noted that Australia has had 44 attempts to amend their Constitution through the referendum and only nine attempts have gone through. We also made an important note from what happens in Australia. Proposals to amend the Constitution are based on questions that are presented to the public, based on a particular issue or an Article. There are instances where the citizens of Australia have agreed to a proposed amendment on a particular Article, but they went ahead to decline to endorse an amendment on another Article, making it to be a win-win, where the entire Bill is not lost just in the event that the people who are participating in the referendum may agree on one issue and disagree on another. We looked at America where there have been over 10,000 suggestions to amend their Constitution and the prevailing legal position is that two-thirds of the 50 states must endorse or ratify the proposed amendments. That gives us 38 states out of 50 states. We learnt that out of the 10,000 proposals, only 27 amendments have won ratifications from the 38 states of the United States of America. We also noted that people can sometimes make crazy proposals. In 1912, someone proposed an amendment to the American Constitution to bar marriage between different races. Someone proposed that a white person should never be allowed to marry a black person and that proposal never received ratification from the 38 states, which are required to ratify any amendments. The Committee proposes that there should be discussion amongst various interest groups on the BBI Report for this process to include all Kenyans. The Committee noted that Article 257 of the Kenyan Constitution does not give room for amendments in a case where the Senate loses an opportunity to make its recommendations, which are to enrich the BBI Report, once the Bill is published and sent to Kenyans. It is on that basis that the Senate emphasizes that the views being proposed by the Senate should be given and ought to enrich the BBI Report. Once the Bill is published and sent to Kenyans, there will be no room for amendment. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}