HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 42758,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/42758/?format=api",
"text_counter": 391,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mrs. Odhiambo-Mabona",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 376,
"legal_name": "Millie Grace Akoth Odhiambo Mabona",
"slug": "millie-odhiambo-mabona"
},
"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I want to congratulate the Minister for bringing this Bill and I want to support it. In supporting the Bill, I want to say that as a country, we have always called for a Supreme Court. I am amongst the people who presented a memorandum when I was in CRADLE, calling for the setting up of a Supreme Court. I know many other Kenyans did so and the reason that we called for the setting up of a Supreme Court is not so that we can promote judges to a more superior court, but because we do not want things to be as they are. We want a change in the way we do things. We want a court of last resort that we have confidence in and persons that we have confidence in. So, to me, the issue is not just the establishment of a court, but that we have persons of integrity, who know and understand the law and who can remain faithful to the Constitution. That is why I am glad that both the Constitution and this Bill talk of impartiality and authoritative interpretation of the Constitution by the judges who will be appointed. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would want to decry the fact that when we have vetted several people, I was shocked to learn that many of the members of the Judiciary do not have further education. The reason why I was shocked is because it is not a wonder then that the decisions that we get from the courts are usually very wanting. In Kenya, we authoritatively still quote Lord Denning. The reason why we are still quoting him is because we have no other information. If you went to the US and other jurisdictions, those decisions by Lord Denning have probably been overturned, but we have no clue because we do not expose our judges to further education, so that they are absolutely unaware of the emerging trends in the world. That is why you get shocking decisions like the one that was given by a retired judge where on a simple case of division of matrimonial property, not only was he unaware that Kenya was still using the 18th Century law of England, but even in not using it, he was still stuck in the 12th Century himself. He blamed all the ills of the world on the woman and said that in the Garden of Eden, problems arose because of women. This judge took his time - I do not know how many days - to write a sixty page judgement where he was just attacking women for going to Beijing instead of taking care of their husbands and their children, cooking for their relatives and tending to cows. I said, surely, even in Kenya here! In Parliament, I do not tend to cows. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, if you have people like that as our judges and supposing we promote such people to our Supreme Court, that is why the name itself is not important. We must vet people for decisions they have made in the past, whether those decisions are gender sensitive, sensitive to persons with disabilities, child rights, human rights, older persons in the society and environmental issues. I am saying this because there was a time we went to court with a decision where a two year old child sued the Attorney-General for a case of discriminating against her for being born out of wedlock. If you look at the decisions by some of those judges, it shows relics of the past. If those are the judges we want to confirm to the Supreme Court, those relics are the ones we are going to take back to the Supreme Court. I would want to encourage the Judicial Service Commission that even as they vet these people on Monday, they need to look at people who are progressive and people who know not only what is going on in Kenya, but what is going on in the world. We are not insular. We are a world of the nations and we are part of the nations of the world. That is why we are acknowledging international treaties. Therefore, we must have judges that are aware that, for instance, gender equity is now taken for granted like breathing. But if you are still debating with us and struggling to understand what gender equity is, really, we should not even be considering you for any serious post, leave alone the Supreme Court. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I was encouraged when women applied for very senior positions like the Chief Justice and even the Deputy Chief Justice. I am glad that we have women who have been shortlisted for the positions of Supreme Court judges. I am happy because the women who did not apply for the post of Chief Justice must have seen that by now, the women who were not appointed Chief Justice have not grown thin, neither have their legs become crooked or their hair fallen because they were not taken. They were asked tough questions, but they were witty and smart and they responded with the same wit that those guys gave them. So, I want to encourage women-- -"
}