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{
    "id": 403584,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/403584/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 371,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kabando wa Kabando",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 31,
        "legal_name": "Kabando wa Kabando",
        "slug": "kabando-kabando"
    },
    "content": "to cease participation in elective or nominated membership of those assemblies, you cannot be in this Council. It is outright discrimination and actually hinges on suggestive unconstitutionalism. Being a Member of Parliament or a Member of the County Assembly (MCA) does not disqualify you from being a member of the Council; that you have to relax for five years without active journalism. We will be telling active journalists never to come and participate in parliamentary work. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the other portion is Clause 9(f)(g) that talks of somebody who has benefited from or facilitated unlawful or irregular allocation, acquisition of use of land or other public property. Again, that is somebody who has been removed from office for contravening provisions of the Constitution or any other written law. If I was removed from office ten years ago because of a certain bylaw but then I was acquitted in court, it means actually you are going to judge me to be guilty past the acquittal. Also we have reports from commissions like the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) which is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). The NGO and the State Corporation have unanimity on the so called faces of impunity where allegations have been put on certain individuals to have participated in certain issues which have not been subject to any judicial process. I think we need to be careful in those matters, otherwise I support this and I urge my colleagues that we think about amendments. I urge my friends in the Fourth Estate to engage us constructively so that we can get appropriate feedback. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I made a decision seven years ago that not in my car, office and house will I ever have the so called gutter media because they exist with all manner of scandals. It is called yellow journalism. Therefore, self regulation and participation of these agencies as listed is very necessary. As I conclude, I would like to alert the person who has spoken before me that really this is not about collapsing media houses because I think she may have been addressing another law and not this particular one. I think her tone was that we are passing this and this law can lead to closure of media houses, deregistration of journalists and so on and so forth. I think as much as we want to promote Press freedom, and this is what we are doing, we also would like to have the responsibilities, honour, dignity and respect required to build our democracy. I sit down citing that if it were not the Nairobi Law Monthly, the Finance magazine, the Economic Review, the Society magazine, the Bild magazine, that arm that gave strong support to the Jaramogis, Matibas, Railas and Rubias of that particular time, things would have been very different. Therefore, media is a very indispensable institution in building democratic change and revelations including Goldenberg and the Kroll Report that we have been inquiring about in this Parliament. Media has responsibility to deal with research and independent surveys which is investigative journalism. Therefore, I support and I will be submitting some amendments at the appropriate time. Otherwise, thank you very much hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, my former chairman in the Students Organisation of the Nairobi University (SONU)."
}