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{
    "id": 1552002,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1552002/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 785,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "They are the ones who carry out due diligence and discoveries on a matter. They spend hours and hours trying to make sense of any brief that they are given. However, you will find that senior lawyers are the ones who end up getting paid Kshs100 million for a brief. As a former member of the Senate Public Accounts Committee and the Public Investments Account Committee, I came across all these legal bills and how much they are. I do not know whether we have room for that because of our Standing Orders. However, this is a matter that I feel that we have not done justice to the Petitioner. The recommendation ought to have been that we cap the amount of money that any county government can spend in outsourcing legal services. That is the first recommendation. These are some of my biggest pet peeves, and Sen. Sigei should listen to this, because if I was a Chairperson of that Committee and someone brings me such a recommendation, I would throw it back. How can you say, “the County Government should prioritize capacity building program for legal counsel, ensuring competitive remuneration and timely payment of allowances allocated to sufficient budgetary resources, and recruit adequate staff to enhance the performance and effectiveness of office of the County Attorney?” Madam Temporary Speaker, when you hire someone to be a county attorney, you go through a vigorous process of hiring a qualified lawyer, who is trained by the Kenya School of Law, who understand matters, if it is litigation, conveyancing and tax laws. They have gone through different processes, and they do continuous legal training. So, you cannot have that recommendation. A petitioner has come and said, please, Senate of Kenya, stop county governments from outsourcing legal services. Stop them. You cannot say, “build up the capacity.” In my opinion, here, the Senate Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs, and Human Rights (JLAHRC) failed. I do not know whether this Petition can be resubmitted, because we have not done justice to it. What are we going to be implementing here? After the Petition, it is sent to the implementing agencies. They are going to implement a capacity training for their legal practitioners. Have they turned into a law school? Certain recommendations should have some merit and meat into it. “County governments should strictly adhere to the legal framework governing the outsourcing of legal services and implementing strong oversight and accountability measures” Can you just read that again, Sen. Sigei, by yourself, even before you come here and submit it? Seriously, we have the Advocates Remuneration Act, which clearly sets how much should be paid for, for instance conveyancing or litigation. How then do you come up with a recommendation and say- “County governments should strictly adhere to legal framework governing the outsourcing of legal services”? They are already doing it. That is why they give the big cases. If a case is worth Kshs1 billion shillings, what we need to do to give justice to this Petition is to say, based on the brief, it should be capped to a maximum of this. If that lawyer cannot get it, get another lawyer. Out of the 20,000 lawyers that we have in Kenya, they are those ones who care about the resources that we have. 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."
}