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{
"id": 251441,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/251441/?format=api",
"text_counter": 351,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Muturi",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 215,
"legal_name": "Justin Bedan Njoka Muturi",
"slug": "justin-muturi"
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the offences that I have read from the Penal Code are within the offences against morality in the Penal Code. Those are the offences which are supposed to be catered for by this Bill. By enacting this Bill as it is, and granted that we have even said that it will supersede all these other legislations regarding sexual offences, then there will be a lacuna within the law. There will be a vacuum that will never be addressed. I will be happy to hear from the Mover what she proposes to do in that kind of situation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the offence called sexual assault in Clause 5, page 351, does not introduce the issue of consent or no consent. That means that there will be family breakdowns as long as there is penetration. I would like to restrain myself because the definition of April 27, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 801 sexual organs here includes the anus. If that is also a sexual organ, what are we trying to say? Are we not introducing sodomy through the back-door? I cannot see how this organ was included here. I fear the fact that we are being told that if we are accused, we cannot give evidence of the past moral character of the person accusing us. That is a very dicey area. I think we need caution. It was not put there for fun. We must be able to show that the person standing there and giving evidence saying that she was sexually assaulted or raped is a person of good moral standing. We live in this country and we have seen cases of people being fixed and framed. I am saying this from my experience on the Bench. This Bill introduces the possibility that one could be jailed on the basis of evidence of somebody whom he has never seen. It introduces that kind of method of trial. Somebody you do not see would have given evidence. On the basis of that evidence, a 10 or 15- years, or life imprisonment, is visited on you. We need to be careful. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I feel that we should also be careful. We cannot say that it does not matter, when a magistrate trying a rape or sexual offence under this Act will not have regard to the time it has taken to report. If we allow that kind of situation, people will start imagining that they did not like us 20 years ago, and when we go home we find police officers waiting for us. This is dangerous because a false allegation will be made against us and everywhere we go, whether we will be proved innocent or not--- Of course, the Bill says here that it is incumbent upon us to prove ourselves innocent. Whether it would be proved finally that you never committed the sexual offence complained of, the damage which would have been done to you will be irreparable. This is because everywhere you go, people will not be saying: \"This is the man who is facing a rape charge.\" Instead, they would be saying: \"This is the rapist.\" We should be careful because people label others all manner of names. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I feel that we must have time limit. What is it that we are trying to protect, so that we could allow a person to report a rape case after 20 years down the road? What would they have been waiting for? Here we have provided that the court should not even ask that question. And that it does not matter even if it is a grandmother of 80 years coming to frame me that 30 years ago I raped her. We must be alive to this things. It has just happened in our neighbouring country here and in South Africa. What were those people waiting for? Those are the questions to be asked. I do not want a situation whereby the West will come to dictate to us on our ways of life; about marriage and cultural practices. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, among the Turkana community, it is customary for young men to go and do some mock fight while helping one of their own to marry. That is a situation in which five or six Turkana young men are all accused of gang-raping a girl, 20 years after the woman has been married and maybe divorced. All those are examples which come to mind when we read through the various provisions of this Bill. We must be careful. All these are examples which make it impossible for me to support this Bill. I think it is only fair that this Bill is withdrawn and re-cast so that it addresses only the issue of sexual offences, or if there is need to make amendments to the law, amend the Penal Code. With those remarks, I beg to oppose."
}