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{
    "id": 493277,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/493277/?format=api",
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    "content": "I would like to give an example of the ship that was destroyed on sea with a haul of drugs. The High Court, the magistrate’s court asserted that the ship should not be destroyed and went further to state that its destruction would tamper with critical evidence, even the Law Society of Kenya said the same, but we went ahead and destroyed it. So, even as we laud the President for respecting the rule of law simply because he responded to a process that would have been extremely adverse for him in the alternative, let us also encourage him to respect the domestic jurisdiction. When you bring yourself to Caesar, you must come with purity so that we can laud you as a law obeying President in all circles. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we, as the Senate, went to court because we felt that the law had been breached. So, let us respect the courts when they assert themselves. If it is about respecting courts, let it be in totality. This Senate has a diminished mandate and capacity to deliver. This is because on one side the court is stopping us and, on the other side, there are court orders which have been made in favour of this Senate in terms of judicial opinions not being respected. When was the last time the Speaker of the Senate was ever consulted on any legislative agenda? Did anybody advise the President not to assent to the Bills that he assented to? Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I think as an opposition, we have a critical mandate to see the other side of the story. In political party dominance of this nature, a lot of people like it whenever you are in power because you are very attractive and everybody rolls out the red carpet. But those who are in power today were not in power yesterday. Those who are in power today, they might not be in power tomorrow. I can tell you for a fact that you must build institutions and countries that outlast individuals and political coalitions. In the circumstances, we have right now, the most critical element for us to partake as a country is institution building. We cannot destroy the institution of the Senate. We cannot destroy the institution of the court. Neither can we destroy the institution of the presidency. We are institutional builders. That is why we support the institutional building process. However, it cannot be selective. It has to be in its totality. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, as we sit here today and celebrate, let us also locate the plight of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and the post-election violence victims. This Senate even needs to adjourn itself just to update itself on what we have done for the victims and to find out what progress has been made in terms of the overall resettlement of the IDPs. Sen. Wako reminded me that there are those IDPs who are in camps and those who have moved to live with their relatives, but they are still IDPs, but they have been forgotten. We cannot only be using one dominant narrative because we are now in power. There must always be a counter narrative so that every Government is tasted on account of what is the best practice. As Sen. Wako said, the Constitution came into automatic effect. But, again, we like to perpetuate a dominant narrative at 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."
}