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{
    "id": 1227328,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1227328/?format=api",
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    "content": "After a CS has responded to a question, the Standing Orders gives the Speaker power to allow the Senator who asked the question to raise a maximum of two supplementary questions that relate to the original question. Any other Senator will be allowed to ask one supplementary question. Hon. Senators, concerning access to the Chamber by CS, and appreciating the limited sitting capacity of the Chamber, I have designated the place adjacent to the Chair on the right, as the appropriate place where CS will make responses to questions. This is the usual place where Administration of Oath ordinarily takes place. The CS may be accompanied by a maximum of three officers from the Ministry, who will take seats to the right of the Chair reserved for public officers. The question framework obviously demands that the management of the time of the Senate is done prudently. In this respect, I direct that each question scheduled shall not take more than twenty minutes. This should account for the original question and the supplementary questions. Cabinet Secretaries will be required to be succinct in making their responses to questions, but may submit to the Clerk, documents in support of oral responses, which will be deemed to have been tabled upon receipt by the Clerk. Pursuant to Standing Order No.51C(6)(c), CSs may make statements or provide reports to the Senate on other matters pertaining to their respective dockets with the leave of the Speaker. In this respect, and appreciating the limitation of time, a CS may address the Senate on only one matter for not more than twenty minutes. Whenever a CS addresses the Senate, the CS shall be heard in silence. Interventions and Points of Order will not be entertained when the CS is making his/her submission. Senators may react to the submission by CSs through supplementary questions. I therefore implore upon hon. Senators to acquaint themselves with Standing Order 98. Unnecessary interruption of a CS in the course of his or her submission to the Senate will not be entertained. Hon. Senators, in light of the new Standing Orders, there have been concerns as to the power of Committees to cause the attendance of CSs to answer matters for which a CS is responsible. Concern has been expressed that the new Standing Orders have taken away the requirement for CS to appear before Select Committees. The Standing Orders as a whole are facilitative and procedural in their nature, and they are not the basis for which a substantive right, privilege or requirement is conferred or otherwise taken away. These, are the domain of the Constitution and statute law and not the Standing Orders. It must be made clear that the amendments to the Standing Orders to provide for CSs to respond to questions in the House does not override or overturn the requirement of Article 153 (3) and (4) (b) of the Constitution. CSs will still have the obligation to adhere to this Article, when required by a committees of the Senate. Further, Article 125 of the Constitution has similarly not been overturned by the new Standing Orders. In any event, hon. Senators, no statute, regulation or subsidiary regulation for that matter, can override the Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Any other law that is in contradiction of the Constitution, then, to the"
}