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{
"id": 1120620,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1120620/?format=api",
"text_counter": 69,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
},
"content": "He resigned. I should quickly add that that Motion did not arise out of non- compliance with summons, failure to honour summons or failure to honour an invitation. What I am trying to say is that when Parliament expresses itself on a Motion like this, its significance is enormous. The practice in the House of Commons - and I have been doing some little reading - is that even in presidential system like the United States of America, where on certain occasions the Congress would express its displeasure on the behaviour or conduct of Federal officials, once those Motions hit the floor of the House, the concerned parties at least would show seriousness. Many of them would, even before the Motion is moved, try to purge the contempt. They would try to plead to the Speaker or reach out to the leader of the House, be it the Majority Leader or the Minority Leader, or use any of the Members of Parliament, to purge the contempt and even convince Parliament, the relevant committee or the relevant Member, not to proceed with the Motion because of its consequences. This according to the Constitution does not result in a removal, but it is so weighty that it cannot be taken lightly by the individual Cabinet Secretary. In these instances, even from yesterday and the week before, when we have been engaged with this matter in the hope that they would try to purge the contempt or reach out to give some explanation, nothing of the sort has happened, at least to my knowledge, except on the part of the CS in charge of Energy, who through the Senator for Turkana, informed me that he was landing in Turkana with a delegation from South Sudan. That being so, and that may be an exigency of duty, I have known that when a Motion of this nature is pending before Parliament, whatever the exigencies of duty are, the public official will defer to Parliament, first, before attending to those other duties. However, in this instance, the way Parliament is being treated is that when you have some other business, whatever it is, then that business is more important than the invitation of summons by Parliament. I think this practice must stop. We must speak loudly on this occasion to remind those concerned that summons or invitation by the House of Parliament is an important instrument under the law, which requires those concerned parties to appear before either the National Assembly or the Senate. I would commend the practice amongst the executive members in South Africa because for them, even the President appears when he is summoned; all of them appear. However, in our instance, particularly for the Senate, this is becoming a practice that continues to be done unabated, it is a malfunction that must be corrected. Mr. Speaker, Sir, you will remember that in the old days when you received summons from a chief, under the Chiefs Act, and you failed to attend, it had consequences. Until that Act was amended, if you disobeyed an order by the chief, you could be prosecuted. Although under that Act, to be prosecuted, consent was required from the Attorney-General. I am glad that for the time the Attorney-General emeritus was Attorney-General, he never gave consent for a Member of Parliament to be prosecuted for disobeying an order from the chief. However, people tended to obey the orders. Just to recapitulate what the law says, some people may think that we are just acting in vain and there is no legal basis for us to do these things. As contained in the body of the Motion, the appropriate Articles of the Constitution have been cited, that is, Article 153 (3). I think we have referred to this Article many times in this House. For"
}