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{
    "id": 459701,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/459701/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 250,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Wahome",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1700,
        "legal_name": "Alice Muthoni Wahome",
        "slug": "alice-muthoni-wahome"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this report. I am surprised that the last speaker, hon. Manson, has become the advocate and defender of people who did not want to defend themselves. The petitions were presented and the Committee has done an exemplary good job. Before arriving at their decision or recommendations to this House, they looked at the petitions. I want to refer hon. Manson to page 20, where the Committee says the following:- “The Committee wrote letters inviting the affected members of the Commission to present written representations to the Petition and granting the affected Commissioners liberty to appear before the Committee and make oral presentations”. It is further stated that the affected members of the Commission did not deliver any written presentations on the matter. The members of the Commission also did not find the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs worthy of their attention. Therefore, they also failed to honour the request to appear to defend themselves against the memoranda and the petitions as stated by Kenyans. The JSC has confused their functions and their role with the judicial authority as stated in Article 160. They have referred this House to Article 60, but for avoidance of doubt, I honestly believe that one of the reasons that they failed to appear is because they equate themselves with the Judiciary or the judges of the High Court when they are dispensing their functions as judges. Article 160 states that:- “In the exercise judicial authority, the Judiciary, as constituted by Article 161, shall be subject only to this Constitution and the law and shall not be subject to the control or direction of any person or authority”. That is the Judiciary, which is different from the JSC. Nobody will direct the judges when they sit and make judgments in the exercise of their mandate as per this Constitution. But an organ of the JSC that tells this House in very clear and uncertain terms that “you cannot summon us”, then we will ask the question: Who then will question their actions if they act outside the law, if it is not this Parliament?"
}