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{
    "id": 423334,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/423334/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 124,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wako",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 366,
        "legal_name": "Amos Sitswila Wako",
        "slug": "amos-wako"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other thing I was a bit concerned about – with a bit of light touch – is when Sen. Lesuuda raised a point of order because Sen. Khalwale said she and Daisy were not aware of what was going on since they were too young. The response of my fellow Senator is that in school, some students are taught history while some are taught medicine. In other words, he was not aware that history was being taught and that these young Senators were aware of the problems that were taking place. However, since he is a doctor, I want to assume that he was not aware of what was going on because he was confined to a hospital treating people and so on. Let him tell us his experiences and whether he treated some people whose rights had been violated physically. I do not want to go into history. The issue here is “comprehensively” and “expeditiously” compensate. The principle of compensation of these victims had been agreed to as Sen. Murungi pointed out. People here may not appreciate that the agreement was in itself momentous. It was momentous because legally and technically, as at that time, there was a law. There were no decisions of the court which said that if you did not institute a case against the Government within one year of the occurrence of what you are complaining about, your case is time barred. In other words, we had a statute of limitation as far as that was concerned. With regard to a number of these people, I could have easily gone to court and said that their cases are time barred under the statutes of limitation. With the situation that existed as at that time, it was very difficult for some of them to have the courage to go to court and file a case. Therefore, a deliberate decision was made by the Attorney-General in consultation with the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. I had already decided that we do not tell the court that the cases are time barred. In other words, we said that however late it was, we asked someone to come and the case would be listened to. If the person proved the case, then they would be compensated. That was a very good point. The other issue that has been dealt with by Hassan Omar is that of Wallace. Wallace was one such case. Wallace’s case is very important because he was one of those brave souls who went to court to file a case. Other people were very timid to file a case at that time. Unfortunately, because of the way our legal profession was, people wanted to make a killing. The advocate asked for Kshs250 million plus more money. If you calculated the interest among other things, this figure translated to Kshs500 million. He was told to either pay that or forget. Fortunately, I established a very good rapport with the Wallace himself, everybody and the Parliament which was concerned with the matter and came up with a compensation that could be justified in law. That compensation was Kshs10 million plus interests and costs and I recommended that he be paid. I do not want to tell this Senate that the money was not awarded to Wallace, at the end of the day, owing to our legal profession. Wallace was my friend and I fought very hard. I fought that advocate until the money was paid and because of that many more cases were filed. That is what Sen. Murungi was saying. There were many cases and some forces in the Government who said that this was too much. We said no, these people must be compensated and we agreed on compensations. The more we agreed, the more cases were filed. It was the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}