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"id": 22577,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I just want, first of all, to support this Motion by the Chairman and thank the Committee for the good work it has done. I have three points I want to make in terms of my remarks. The first thing is to congratulate ourselves, as Parliament, in the manner in which we have made sure that the Executive presented names by requiring under the Act that these names must have gone through the Public Service vetting process. These people were required under Article 7 of the Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Acts, 2010, to have gone through some process before they were nominated by His Excellency the President and the Right Hon. Prime Minister. In other legislations where we have not made it open for the applicants to sort out those qualifications to be done, we have witnessed some kinds of nominations which have immediately drawn reactions from the public that the President and the Prime Minister were, in fact, favouring the regions from where they came. But you can see that in this particular process, there was nothing like that. Although the nominations were by the President and the Prime Minister, they went through a process. I would urge the Members of this House that in any future legislation, we should put this kind of requirement, so that all future public officers that need parliamentary approval or the President in future to nominate shall protect the President. Then, having gone through a process like this, there will be nothing like accusations that we have seen in other appointments. The second point, and I support the kind of processes they have gone through, I need to say that I am very proud that one of the people that we are approving, Mr. Justice Munyithya, is a fine character from my law school. We shared the same classroom in the university with the Chairman here and I can vouch for him that he will do a good job. Secondly, I support the fact that two of the members have been very active in terms civic duty. I particularly want to single out the Chairman, Mr. Sharad Sadashiv Rao, who declared that he is a life member of KANU. The assumption here is that he has been interested in matters concerning Government and public duty. The other one that I want to single out is Prof. Ngotho wa Kariuki, whose history we all know very well and how he has participated consistently in trying to find a country that he would be proud of. Today, I am very happy that some of these people that we were reading in history books are now part and parcel of the reformation and rebirth of this nation. I am mentioning this particular issue of civic duty because sometimes we are over mesmerized by qualifications that are brought to us even by the Public Service Commission. We need, in future, to make it very clear about people who sit in their houses, when it is time to vote, they never vote because they are too educated, too middle class or too important. They never participate in issues regarding formation of the Government; they are never interested, but when the Government is formed, they come waving huge degrees and they want the positions where people have fought and struggled to form those kind of governments. People have gone to vote. I would ask that this Committee chaired by hon. Abdikadir, my very good friend, to insist, in future, whether the people who need to take Government positions have participated and done their civic duties. For example, are they registered voters? Some of them live in far away countries and have no investments in this nation. They have not invested emotionally or even in matters concerning this country. In fact, when they hear it is time to vote, they take off out of this country. When the Government has been formed, they come waving their beautiful degrees and then we look at them and forget the Kenyans who went to vote and took interest in civic duty and just follow those beautiful degrees. I am a holder of a Masters Degree in International Trade and Development Law from the University of Nairobi and a degree holder from the University of Nairobi. These are not simple degrees, but I participate in civic duty. There are some of these people who are not interested. In fact, they think you are crazy to go and line up to vote as a Kenyan to participate in civic duty. I urge this Chairman, because we will be approving other positions, that they look and disqualify people who do not have voters card and people who have never participated in any political parties. They are not even members of political parties. They do not care about what happens to the Government, but they want to take those positions after we have formed this Government. We must make it a duty. We have to look at the history of these people. Were they really interested or maybe they have just come to take up positions in order to have retirement plans? I never saw in this report of the Committee any mention at all of participation in civic duty. I think that is an omission that they must look at. We cannot give public positions to people who were never interested. In this Kenya, we must give public positions to people who are interested. The final and the third point that I wanted to make is that I have a lot of respect for qualifications, but there is something that I think this nation needs to address itself to. When we are making appointments and approvals to some important positions such as this one, which requires more, we have said very many times in this House that the Judiciary needs to be like Caesar’s wife, completely, above reproach. So, it is not a matter of degrees. There are many people who have beautiful degrees, but they are not above reproach. So, the people who are going to be vetting those people, we cannot just be emphasizing on the degree and beautiful qualifications. Apart from that, I feel very sad that we are approving a board here, we have emphasized on their beautiful qualifications, but there is not a single member of the clergy in this list. This country needs to involve our spiritual self. This nation was created and founded on spiritual values and even in the National Anthem, the mention of the Lord God is important for the foundations of this country. We cannot be selecting a group of people who are going to be vetting our judges and then we leave out the clergy."
}