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{
    "id": 42756,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/42756/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 389,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Githae",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Nairobi Metropolitan Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 159,
        "legal_name": "Robinson Njeru Githae",
        "slug": "robinson-githae"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, secondly, Judges of the Supreme Court, like Caesar’s wife, must be above suspicion. They should not have any shade of contradictory character. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am glad to see that the Supreme Court is actually forced to sit in one sitting. At the moment, the Court of Appeal has about three circuits. Therefore, you will find one circuit of the Court of Appeal, say, in Kisumu, another one in Mombasa and another one in Nairobi, giving contradictory judgements. I am glad that here, the Supreme Court must sit as a whole, so that they can develop philosophy and jurisprudence of law. That way, the lower courts then can follow the precedent set by the Court of Appeal. In this way, they must not be afraid to call even for judgements where there has been no appeal, like it happens in the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Where a matter is of public interest, the Supreme Court of the United States of America calls for that file. An appeal does not even have to be proffered there. They call for the file, look at the judgement and then make a ruling. The ruling then guides the country as a whole. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, it is important that the Supreme Court actually achieves the purpose that it is being established for. One of them, as per the Constitution, is that it will be the sole body that will be able to arbitrate on presidential elections. I think that is the way it should be, so that we have one body that will be able to look at the petitions of presidential elections. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think one of the most important clauses is that the Supreme Court will be able to look at all judgements, even in a case that has been passed after the vetting of the Judge and the Judge has not been able to meet the criteria. In my view, this is a bit restrictive. We should have allowed them to open all cases, namely, where there has been claim of bribery, claim of corruption and a claim where justice was not served. We should have given them that liberty instead of restricting it to just those cases that form part of the case against the judge. That way, we would then be able to look everybody straight in the eye and say that all the judgements that are in our books were properly passed by the Judicial Authority."
}