Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1065955,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1065955/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 175,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "Clause 31, for instance, is expanded to reflect the new normal of data-driven economy and socioeconomic and political rights. These are some of the things we had not anticipated in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. Therefore, to amend the structures to ensure that certain aspects that had not been anticipated like this pandemic, issues around data or the fourth industrial estate, this must be accommodated and dealt with through amendments. This is because the strength of our Constitution is in the ability of Wanjiku to amend it to reflect its new realities. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am a little confused by the Committee’s recommendation to implement and have this this Bill passed, but at the same time, talk of the unconstitutionality of a constitutional amendment. How on earth can any constitutional amendment that has been given a mechanism for amendment be termed unconstitutional? What contradiction is it then to say that even though our Constitution has anticipated us being able to amend it, and given us a blow-by-blow mechanism and different approaches to do so, we then go back and say it is unconstitutional? I am a bit confused. I am not a lawyer, but I see contradiction in the Committee’s assertion that certain provisions are unconstitutional. Perhaps you can talk of the content not being agreeable to you, but I do not understand how a process that is in law can be termed unconstitutional and in the same breath, asked to pass it because it is a good one. I know that the Senior Counsel is a lawyer of great standing and knows why he is saying that. However, from where I sit, it looks like confusion of speech from both sides of the mouth.The recommendation is to pass the Bill, but the unconstitutionality of the constitutional amendment is what we are being told it is. How can it be wrong to expand the parameters of certain provisions in our Constitution that have not worked well for us in the last ten years – tweak and make them better to accommodate and include – be termed as something unconstitutional or below optimal? Madam Deputy Speaker, as I said, if we need to revisit the issue of the 70 constituencies, we do not have to do so within a constitutional amendments Bill. It has been said again that the work of delimitation of boundaries and allocation of constituencies is the constitutional mandate of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). Why not leave that to the IEBC and pass the Bill? As a draft Bill, unless we take it back to Wanjiku for her endorsement, I do not see how at this level, we can decide to amend. If we were going through Article 256 of the Constitution, for instance, and it is a Parliamentary process, we are mandated to do that. However, Wanjiku chose a direct approach, where she has control over the outcome of the process. Taking that away from her is to insinuate that this Constitution did not know what it was doing when it gave us two different approaches. One is where parliamentarians can influence, change and take control of and another where Wanjiku can exercise her power directly, and do as she pleases."
}