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"speaker_name": "Ms. Ndung'u",
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"legal_name": "Susanna Njoki Ndung'u",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I stand here to support the adoption of the Report of the Departmental Committee on Administration of Justice and Legal Affairs with regard to the FIDA nominee to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Agency (KACA) Advisory Board. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, FIDA is a reputable organisation which represents the interests of women in Kenya in terms of law and policy. It is significant that nowadays the Government is taking on board civil society members and other stakeholders in terms of its appointment. It does reflect diversity and it also brings on board the experience and information that other organisations and stakeholders may have. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there have been delays with this particular appointment because we felt that the first nomination we got did not meet the sufficient criteria. We were very happy to receive two names from FIDA. However, it was very difficult to choose between the two, but finally after looking at these two very competitive Curriculum Vitaes (CVs), we settled on our nominee. I hope the President will appoint and gazette the committee's nominee as soon as possible. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is an example of where we want Parliament to go. It really must check the Executive. One of the ways of doing so, is by checking the appointments of the Executive. However, I must say that we need to be cautious. I really would not go all the way like my Chair to say that Parliament must vet all appointments. Indeed, we have problems in this Parliament; problems of ethnicity and parochialism. Until we reach a level of maturity in this House, we need to limit the appointments to those that are only for constitutional offices. I think that by the time Parliament gets through appointing ambassadors, we will have taken all parliamentary time debating who should be the ambassador for which country instead of actually doing parliamentary work. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also hope, in future, we continue with this trend where Parliament will ensure that women are represented in the appointments that we vet and approve. I hope this will be in line with the principle of Government where they have said that they April 4, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 413 will appoint one-third of women in all public appointments. This must also apply to parliamentary and Judiciary appointments. Currently, the Court of Appeal has five judges. There are two vacancies since 2003. However, these five judges are all men. The two vacancies have been just vacant as if there are no women to fill them in the Judiciary and yet, they are there. Perhaps, the problem is that the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) which appoints judges, is in itself, all male. So, I think you can see that there is a problem where if the appointing authority has no women, then we will not have women in the appointments. I think this is also one of the reasons why we must look towards minimum reforms. In the minimum reforms, of course, we will be talking about Parliament vetting Executive appointments. We really need to push this through, but we need to have a rider that those appointments also need to have a gender perspective. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, apart from the nomination of women into this House on the 24 seats that are proposed, we need to make sure that we talk about the issues of women throughout. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we talk about dual citizenship in the essential minimum reforms, we have also talked about the need for women to transfer their citizenship to their children. That has been taken care of in the proposals put forward by the Committee on Administration of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, which, hopefully, will be taken into consideration in next week's talks, and be brought here in the House as a Bill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are also other issues that will be addressed during the essential reforms, such as additional constituencies and some convoluted language which is very confusing for us to interpret; what should be the meaning of this and that, like we saw in today's debate on the issue of additional constituencies. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, however, we need to up the minimum reform focus on comprehensive reforms. There, again, we will be looking at the role of Parliament in appointing and vetting executives. We should not stop at the minimum reforms. We must move forward to make sure that we provide for all the rights of all the citizens and, indeed, creatures of this country, including those snakes that chased counsel out of the law courts. Maybe, in future it will not be the Members of Parliament taking to their heels from snakes, but the snakes taking to their heels from the Members of Parliament. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, I think that in terms of our governance, our institutions should respect one another. They should respect the independence of Parliament and our ability to know what we are doing, in terms of what laws we need. I am saying this taking note of a newspaper advertisement published by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Advisory Board, criticizing the Committee on Administration of Justice and Legal Affairs for a position we have officially taken on some of the amendments that need to be made on anti-corruption laws. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think it is important for each institution to keep its mandate, but recognise the independence of Parliament. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}