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"id": 503321,
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"content": "Hon. Members, actually, the issues raised by hon. (Eng.) Gumbo are not very light. I have also looked at the Bill. Of course, I do appreciate that it is one of those Bills--- If you look at Article 72 of the Constitution, Parliament is supposed to legislate on environmental matters. Again, Article 162, sub-article 2, Paragraph (b) states that the matter of creating the tribunal that is expected to be established with powers similar to those of the High Court is vested within Parliament. So, I do appreciate that perhaps the drafters of the Bill may have thought that all they needed to do was to amend it in order to comply with both Articles 72 and 162 of the Constitution. However, it is very interesting that if one looked at the entire Principal Act No. 8 of 1999, it would not be very difficult to come up with a completely new Bill incorporating all these views which are included here. In my view, it would have been neater to do so because it would have been a new Bill, of course, as usual, provided that the enactment of this Bill will mean the repeal of Act No. 8 of 1999. That is the easiest way of going about it. You should come up with a new Bill, put this new Act, particularly, to provide where the Cabinet Secretary in the former Act was given power to make regulations having the force of law. In terms of Article 94, sub-article 6, no person or authority has power to make provision to make the force of law, other than Parliament. Then make those provisions within the new law. It is true that it is the Attorney General’s suggestion to align the Principal Act with the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. However, I think it would have been much neater if a completely new Bill was proposed. But, be that as it may, as a House, we have a responsibility to deal with those Bills that are presented to us. We will have the difficulty of having to consider this Bill section by section as it is, make what we will of those proposals and as the Leader of Majority Party says; including changing the title, if we chose to. This is what we have. However, it is fair to observe that it would have been much neater if a new Bill had been presented to us with all these new provisions, which were merely going to align that old law with the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. However, I am unlikely to be the one to give direction as to what the Executive will do when they propose legislation. As you know, under the current dispensation, hon. Members are at liberty to propose new laws and legislative proposals. Therefore, it is up to those originating Bills to decide how they want those Bills to be owned. I want to agree that, once a Bill has been referred to a Committee, if the period that we have given ourselves in our Standing Orders expires, there is nothing, save convenience and good order that will require us to get a report of the Committee. However, it is much easier and again neater and smoother if we had a report from the Committee concerned because I believe that Committee, perhaps, had interactions with various stakeholders in keeping with the provision of Article 118 on public participation. So, if they had given us their report, I am sure hon. Members debating this Bill would have been more enriched with whatever they may have come across in those interactions. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}