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{
    "id": 416026,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/416026/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 342,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Kanyua",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 981,
        "legal_name": "Priscilla Nyokabi Kanyua",
        "slug": "priscilla-nyokabi-kanyua"
    },
    "content": "With regard to this Bill today, we are happy that we are reforming what actually has been working well. We are trying to reach a better and a new milestone in terms of the next 50 years that the Law Society of Kenya is going to be in operation. I want to thank the Government, the Leader of the Majority Party and also the Jubilee side for finding it in their time and value to bring a law of this nature before this Assembly. As I support this Bill and noting that I am a member of that profession, I want to note that we draw a lot of our judges from the Law Society of Kenya. While we draw judges from there, also a lot of Members of Parliament who are in this House are also drawn from that particular profession. As we look at the ethics of the Law Society of Kenya we are, indeed, looking at the ethics of the Judiciary. We are also looking at the ethics of the lawyers wherever else they could be practising. So, it is important that in this day and age the Law Society of Kenya is guided by a law that is modern, revised, and homegrown. We talk about homegrown laws many a times, but it is time that we looked at some of those laws. The Law Society of Kenya itself should enable the country to look at many other laws that are also obsolete. We do have, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, in our criminal law crimes like loitering, touting, walking in a manner likely to suggest and so on. It is time we cleaned up our law. We have crimes that this country can understand. The Law Society of Kenya, having reformed its own law, can then take up the mantle to reform the many other laws that need to be reformed. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we are also looking at a society that is active, one that is going to be vibrant and one that will have a chairman who need not come from the Council. Since we got the rule about the chairperson of the Law Society of Kenya coming from the Council everybody admits that, indeed, we have lost something in terms of the space for democratization in this country. When the Law Society of Kenya gets very able and strong chairpersons that is, indeed, the better part of how work should be done. I confess as a young lawyer that for as long as you are settled in matters of bread and butter sometimes you are unable to look at society differently. The matters of bread and butter really do take a lot of time and many young lawyers, I included, who are looking for bread and butter are unlikely to put the amount of wisdom that is required in some of the legislation that the country needs. Therefore, the chairperson of the Law Society of Kenya needs to be a member of the society who is beyond matters of bread and butter and so can, therefore, help and guide the country in terms of where it is going. To get these kinds of persons, sometimes the Council of the Law Society of Kenya is not the best place to look. We need to look outside the Council. If you look at the issue of constitutional dispensation, we have become a country of rules and legalities. Every single problem in this country is solved by passage of another law. We have so many laws and we are not even implementing them. The Law Society of Kenya has a task, duty and work to do in terms of making this country look at the Constitution and apply that Constitution. The answer to our numerous problems is not another law. Sometimes the answer is in economics, say, economic development so that we have a bigger cake that we can all share, or in having the marginalized looked after. Those conversations can only be brought about by a Law Society of Kenya that is The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}