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{
    "id": 1065874,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1065874/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 94,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cherargei",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13217,
        "legal_name": "Cherarkey K Samson",
        "slug": "cherarkey-k-samson"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for this opportunity. From the outset, I wish to state that I do not support this constitutional amendment Bill for reasons that I am going to talk about. One, the promoters of this Bill say that they collected the views of Kenyans, but no one has shown us what Kenyans want or how these ideas were collated. Therefore, there is an assertion that Article 257 talks about popular initiative. This popular initiative should be a Parliamentary initiative by the political parties of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga. They should have used their political parties to push this agenda. You cannot have a popular initiative where you have a secretariat that uses tax payers’ money, contrary to the Okoa Kenya and Punguza Mizigo Bills that we already had. Therefore, under Article 257 on the popular initiative, the threshold of popular initiative is so high that you cannot compare what this Bill tries to talk about. Another misnomer is that Kenyans expressed their views through the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), but they were not captured. When you look at Article 94 on the Role of the Parliament; Article 257; and Article 259 on construing of the Constitution--- My good friend, Prof. Mutakha Kangu, who taught me Constitutional Law, said that you do not interpret the law in isolation. There are people in this country who want to interpret Article 257(7) of the Constitution in isolation. When you look at the construing of the Constitution, legislative power has not been taken from us. Some people want to say that Parliament is playing the role of flower girls or pageboys, and we are keen. People are forgetting that under Article 1 of the Constitution, we are representatives of the people and represent the interests of the people. When I speak here, I do so on behalf of more than 875,000 residents of Nandi County who gave me the mandate. This is what Thomas Hobbs and Aquinas said:"
}