HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 1488947,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1488947/?format=api",
"text_counter": 165,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Otiende Amollo, SC",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The fact that we are here in a situation where to impeach a Deputy President, we have to go through these processes, it shows our maturity. However, let it not be mistaken as some people have, that the process of impeachment is a criminal trial. When you hear people ask the Mover of the Motion, “do you have any proof? Can you demonstrate?” It means they are confusing this process with a criminal process. It is not a criminal process. Mr. Speaker, Sir, what we have in impeachment is a halfway house between the whim before 2010 and the beyond reasonable doubt proof in a criminal trial. In the words of Article 50 of the Constitution, all you have to show is reason to believe. What the lawyers would call just a prima facie case. You do not have to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt. So, all the questions that I heard my learned friends putting to the Mover to prove and demonstrate look good to the public gallery, but add no value to the test for Impeachment. Impeachment is like a vote of confidence or no confidence. Just the same way when you vote the President and the Deputy President, no one asks you to justify why because you exercise your discretion. When you lose that confidence, no one should ask you to demonstrate why. That is why it is a political process. Otherwise, it could have been a judicial or a religious process. It is important to make two distinctions. First, that in this process, you do not have to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt. The beyond reasonable doubt can come later when the other processes come in, like the investigative agencies. Secondly, our courts use an adversarial system, where you bring all the documents and are restricted to what you have brought. The process in this House is inquisitorial under Article 145 all the way to 149 of the Constitution. Therefore, it allows this House to go beyond what the Mover has brought or what the other witnesses have brought. This House has exercised that jurisdiction quite maturely. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I suggest that the idea of impeachment is one which is legal in process only, but political in content and merit. As long as all the legal processes for fair hearing are observed, it is not open to anyone to question the merit in terms of the decision of the National Assembly or this Senate because the safeguard is in the numbers. That is why before you move it in the National Assembly, you need 117 members. For it to pass, you need at least two-thirds. Even in this House, you need two-thirds. That is the safeguard. The safeguard is not in the legal technicalities. Mr. Speaker, Sir, for that reason, while it looks juicy and very good to the gallery to have that intense cross-examination such as we saw of the Mover of the Motion, it is irrelevant. It is highly irrelevant and to the untrained eye, they might think you are achieving much, but you are not achieving much. It must be remembered that the impeachment here is of the Deputy President, not the Mover of the Motion. So, however much you discredit the Mover of the Motion, you do your client no justice when you do not address the substance of what is moved. Allow me to refocus on Article 150 of the Constitution. It makes a very important distinction and I heard the lawyers of the Deputy President saying that there is precedent. There is no precedent in our court in terms of Impeachment. There is precedent in terms The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}