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{
    "id": 106282,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/106282/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 313,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me an opportunity to contribute in full support of this Bill. May I also take this opportunity to thank my learned senior for the kind words he has said about me in his concluding remarks. If you look at the Bill and the Statute it intends to repeal, you will ask yourself in what frame of mind the Parliament that passed this Bill was. It is very difficult to come to terms with the Bill that is so latently unconstitutional, whose contents are repulsive, discriminatory and not fit to be a law in any civilized country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as my learned senior and Mover Amb. Affey has very ably pointed out, this targeted the North Eastern Province. However, the law was actually wider. It also affected the people of Isiolo, Marsabit, Tana River and Lamu. The content of the law is very bad and unjust that it defeats any stretch of imagination that it was drafted, debated and passed by Parliament. I do recall, like my colleague Imanyara, once I was hired to go and defend an accused person in Mandera. When I arrived, the District Commissioner, who was the magistrate, ordered me to be locked away. This was not in the cells but in a room where I was under what looked like closed arrest. As I was seated in that room the proceedings were going on. I came out and found my client had been sent to jail on fictitious charges. I eventually succeeded in appealing but after grave injustice had been committed. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at the rules of procedure that were promulgated to support this Bill, it is laughable. First, the principal player is either the Provincial Commissioner or the District Commissioner and the accused person is not allowed to call witnesses without the permission of the court. How can that be justice? That you are being accused, you want to prove your innocence and only the court can allow you to bring a witness to say so. Even more importantly the quorum for the court is said to be at the very least two; that is the District Commissioner and any other officer. Therefore, the District Commissioner can sit with his"
}