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{
    "id": 287859,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/287859/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 284,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Muigai",
    "speaker_title": "The Attorney-General",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 408,
        "legal_name": "Githu Muigai",
        "slug": "githu-muigai"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, you have ruled and the courts in this country have also ruled; that a constitutional question does not arise each time there is a contested question or each time there is a difference of interpretation. You have ruled that a constitutional question arises when there is a clear violation of the Constitution on the face of the proposed action. I am happy to accommodate the hon. Member. That is why I said we will consider all the issues he has raised, those issues raised by all the constitutional commissions, including the Commission on Implementation of the Constitution, and everybody else. Those issues will be scrutinised at the Committee Stage at great detail. I refuse to believe that there is any Member of Parliament here who has sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of Kenya, who will allow any piece of legislation that, to his own mind and conscious is unconstitutional; to pass. Mr. Speaker, Sir, therefore, I would like to join hon. Wetangula in saying that the questions raised are contentious questions to be interrogated at the Committee Stage. I have undertaken personally to be available to provide such resources as my office can, to help elucidate the issues in question. Where it is demonstrated by hon. Mbadi or by any other hon. Member that there is a serious constitutional question, I undertake to this House that I will withdraw that portion or that proposal of amendment for further consideration. I do not want to say anything about public participation but I want to urge hon. Members again that some of the Bills we are trying to amend are Bills we passed here ourselves less than a year ago. This House urged me on more than three occasions, while I was very new at the job, to come back with amendments, so that we could clean up that legislation. I have done exactly what you commanded me to do, Sir. Therefore, I urge hon. Members to give the amendments an opportunity to be ventilated on at the Committee Stage. There are such grave national consequences, including one relating to the holding of a by-election, where upon serious considerations by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the Office of the Attorney-General, the Minister for Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs, and many other stakeholders, it has been felt necessary, for abundant caution, that the statute should come back to the House for us to make it absolutely clear under what circumstances that by-election can be held. We cannot hold that business back for very long. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I urge you to rule that we ought to proceed with dispatch. Thank you."
}