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{
    "id": 497837,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/497837/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 233,
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    "content": "Some of these matters can be dealt with saying that we only need lawyers and to say that they are not good politicians. The problems that we are dealing with are people who interpret the law; that is the Judiciary. It is not that they do not know the law; they know the law. Some of them require diplomacy and public relations skills. If you look at this list, knowledge of law is not a preserve of lawyers and it cannot be. Yes, they have studied it but I think all of us have our understanding of the same. I have listened to Sen. Orengo say that we have included come gracious ladies in the Committee. I think he was referring to the Senators who are female. There is a trend that we have picked in this House where we only include women as an after-thought whereas we constitute 27 per cent of this House. It is not a matter of choice. It is very unfortunate that this happens all the time; that we come to the Chamber and notice that we do not have the required percentage of women in the committees. Even if it passes, the basic minimum should be 27 per cent, proportionate to our membership. This is not a choice; it is something which we must adhere to as a House. We cannot be an appendage all the time. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this is not to say that proposing this Committee then means that we do not have a problem as a House. We have a problem and not a small one. We have a myriad of cases, but these cases can be dealt with through the established committees. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights is capable of dealing with this issue. They could form a sub-committee to deal with the issue. The political leadership of this Senate could decide to pick a small number of Senators to deal with the issue. In principle, I think it would look very bad that we already have a problem of making sure that our committee work is not affected. Even if we want to send a political message, that political message must be very clear and not lose the value of the formation of a committee. We must not lose the output that is expected of a committee, we must not lose the fact that we are in two or three other committees. It will not make sense and I do not think it is realistic. I want to join those who have opposed this Motion because I feel that what we need is the tracking of the decisions of this House and the work of committees. The Committee on Implementation chaired by Sen. Orengo should be able to complement what the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights is doing in terms of tracking what decisions we have taken as a Senate to make sure that our constitutional right is not tampered with and that we are able to execute our constitutional mandate without hindrance. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we are in agreement that we need to exercise what lawyers call prior restraint. You cannot injunct the other arm of Government from discussing what the Constitution gives them as their mandate. These issues cannot be resolved by having a 13 Member or 16 Member Committee. I think this is a deeper issue and we need the leadership of this House to do Public Relations and apply all the skills in order to reach out to the Executive and sit with the National Assembly leadership. I think even in the National Assembly, there are 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."
}