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"id": 1097612,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Ugenya, MDG",
"speaker_title": "Hon. David Ochieng’",
"speaker": {
"id": 2955,
"legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
"slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
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"content": " Thank you so much, Hon. Speaker. I want to thank Hon. Duale for bringing such an important issue for your considered ruling. Remember on the day of voting on the BBI Bill in this House, I raised so many pertinent issues on which you made your considered ruling. I want to say that, where Hon. Mbadi and I come from, we say that when a mongoose catches the chicken, we chase the mongoose, but we also blame the chicken. What was it doing in the bushes where the mongoose is supposed to be? On this matter, we are dealing with an issue where the Executive tried to mess us with the Constitution. That is the truth. As we consider what Hon. Duale has told you, I want you to separate those Bills that are before this House today, from what has been decided in the courts. These are very new Bills. In my opinion, they do not touch on what the courts have said. So, I would not imagine that the judgment given by the two courts would stop us, as a House, from processing any Bill. Having saying that, there are things that are in the realm of politics and which must be left to politics; whether they are bad or good. In the same vein, there are those things that are in the realm of the law that we would easily leave to the courts. Hon. Speaker, in your ruling, you should do both because you stand on both aisles namely, politics and the law. That is why you guide us here, but your rulings are considered as rulings that would be at the level of the High Court. As you do that ruling, I would also want to request you to consider the following: One, the issue of whether the Bills being proposed on this Floor are amendment Bills or they are repealing the Constitution. That was an issue before the courts. The courts were saying that the total effect of the 70 old amendments in the BBI amounted to repeal, not amend. So, when you are making your ruling, I would like you to look at those two, whether the Bills before this House are repealing or amending. It is my considered view that they are amending. By amending, I want to disagree with the Leader of the Majority Party that if you are amending and, for example, you propose to bring in ministers to the Floor of this House, the courts are saying, and I agree with them, that you should deal with one issue in any amendment. Do not mix so many issues. You want to raise 30 per cent of county money, you want to bring ministers to parliament, and you want to deal with the gender rule. It is a mix that no one can think about. You are trying to overturn the Constitution. In my mind, I do not think the Bills on the Floor of the House as proposed by Members, amount to what we saw being done to the BBI. On the issue of the IEBC, I also want to refer to what the Leader of the Majority Party has said. The courts are very clear that we must distinguish between two things; issues of policy and issues that require the IEBC as a Commission. The Commissioners sitting are seven, deciding on how one matter will go. This stems from the issues the IEBC deals with in their administrative function. Like now people have been asking about the Ugenya by-election. I came here through a by-election and at that time, the IEBC had only three Commissioners. The court said in their judgment that on matters where the IEBC commission has no decisive vote, matters whose results are unpredictable because they do not belong to the IEBC but to the people, you cannot fault the IEBC. That is the case with the election of the President of the Court of Appeal. The IEBC role was not to decide whether Hon. Justice Musinga would be president or not. They are only facilitating the administrative process. The courts are saying that those ones are okay, but where the Commission has decided, we would determine one way or the other, how we will collect signatures, decide one way or the other, and how the regulations look like, then that requires the IEBC to be fully or half quorate. We need to distinguish those ones. The courts are introducing something that is very unique. I think that we, as Parliament, must look at and see whether we want to comply with it or not. The issue of whether if you are The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}