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{
    "id": 1057080,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1057080/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 140,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13219,
        "legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
        "slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. First, I want to disclose to the House that my Committee was already seized of this matter. We had a meeting this morning and quite a number of weighty legal issues came up for deliberation before the Committee. Before you gave this Communication to the House, as a Committee, we had agreed to get some advice from the legal team. We were to meet tomorrow to develop some position as a Committee. Now that we are where we are, we respect the Communication from the Chair and my Committee will proceed to consider this matter. On the issue of public participation, if you read Article 257, there is nowhere an obligation is placed on the county assemblies or on the Senate to undertake public participation. This can be compared with what is in Article 256(2) where Parliament is obligated to publicise any Bill to amend the Constitution and facilitate public participation on the Bill. If you were to take it at face value, one may say that it is not necessary to undertake public participation under Article 257. However, we cannot close our eyes to Article 10 whose subheading is, ‘National Values and Principles of Governance.’ If you look at Article 10 (2), it says- “The national values and principles of governance include- (a) patriotism, national unity, sharing and devolution of power, the rule of law, democracy and participation of the people.” It is actually the national values enumerated in Article 10 that guide the House in ensuring that we do public participation. Secondly, everything that we do in this House can be checked by the Judiciary. Therefore, we must proceed with caution and ensure that any process that we are doing as a House is within the confines of the Constitution and that if it was to find its way to the Judiciary, then we will not have been found to have violated the Constitution. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the decision that has been made by the leadership that this Bill be subjected to public participation is with a lot of wisdom and it should carry the day. 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."
}