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{
    "id": 1265683,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1265683/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 238,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "West Mugirango, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Stephen Mogaka",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this amendment to the Penal Code. I thank the promoter, Hon. Gikaria, for taking a bold step to start cleaning up our Penal Code. Our Penal Code is infested with a lot of archaic laws. Majority of them fly in the face of the express articles of the Constitution. Loitering and other useless laws that impede the freedom of movement of any Kenyan have no business being in our Penal Code under the 2010 Constitution. I agree that we need to overhaul our Penal Code and include serious offences that are occurring today which are blue-collar crimes such as electronic theft, electronic corruption and electronic transfer of funds illegally from country to country. It is wrong to continue having such archaic laws and to allow our security agencies, particularly the police, to abuse the laws by restricting people’s freedom of movement. I want to commend Hon. Gikaria and encourage him that as soon as we pass this amendment, he should pick another offending provision of the Penal Code, so that we can gradually be known as the 13th Parliament that amended some of the colonial laws. I remember the Witchcraft Act which was abused because African herbal medicine and practices were being made illegal and Kenyans would just be picked and charged with witchcraft. As a proud African, I want to say that even black magic is magic. We cannot continue calling things in Africa by evil names and criminalising such acts. Therefore, I support this Motion and encourage the House to quickly pass this law so that we can then look at other abusive provisions of the Penal Code. We need to clean them up so that Kenyans can freely walk and police officers do not just arrest and charge them without a reason. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I support."
}