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{
    "id": 1087384,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1087384/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 161,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. As long time practitioners of law we feel very sad when we read and hear from the Senator from Kericho that a court has been closed and nothing is being done about it. Article 48 of the Constitution is very clear that the State must ensure that every Kenyan has access to justice. Many other Articles of the Constitution talk of speedy dispensation of justice and affordable access to justice. People should not be made to suffer because of poor administrative decisions by any arm of Government. As my colleagues before me have said, a court is not a building. A court is any arena where justice can be dispensed to any person in need of justice. We are being told about tents in the Obado case. You can actually sit as a court under a tree as long as there is a judicial officer, in criminal cases there is a prosecutor and they can dispense justice for Kenyans. To close a court and let people languish in custody on end because the Judiciary is not functioning is wrong and something condemnable. You have been reading and as lawyers, you know that over 80 percent of Kenyans in remand custody or post-trial custody are people with petty offences like snatching a phone, pick-pocketing and petty burglary. Now they are even arresting boys on bodaboda. If you do not have a license you go to court and you are given a bond. I remember we went to Kitui during the Senate Mashinani with Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr., Sen. Sakaja and others. In one hour we fundraised and got more than 23 petty inmates released. You find somebody has been in custody for the last one year because he could not raise bail of Kshs2,000. The courts just keep on mentioning cases. We must reach a situation where certain petty offences should attract free bonds as long as people can turn up. I do not believe that anybody found riding a boda boda motorcycle without a license will run away from justice. Let us deal with criminals who are hardened and dangerous to society in a different way from the way we deal with unfortunate petty offenders, economic offenders. Somebody passing by a maize field and plucking a cob of maize to save himself from hunger end up in custody for two years. This is not right. I want to urge the new Chief Justice who has come in with a lot of goodwill that the letter we saw about accountability of the Judiciary on the spreading of public resources must have come out of improper advice. Madam Temporary Speaker, no Parliament in this country or any comparable jurisdiction that will summon a judge to ask them how they arrived at a judgment in a case. That we cannot do, but we vote for money to go to the Judiciary to build structures and run their day-to-day expenditure. They have to account for that money. Parliament will appropriate funds to Government departments and will also hold them to account. You will remember in 2013 when the Auditor-General questioned that the Judiciary had spent Kshs68 million on the inauguration of the President. The Judiciary has never been given any authority to spend money on a presidential inauguration. You can tell that that money was actually misappropriated, if not stolen. 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."
}