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"content": "No.10 of 2015). I am happy to report that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has tabled its report on the public hearing, whereupon we have suggested several amendments to the Bill, particularly on the question of review of decisions by public bodies or private entities. This is a very progressive Bill. In the past, persons in this country have suffered without any legislative framework on how to handle decisions made outside the public sector, particularly the private sector. I have in mind a recent decision to bar women from a certain private club. If this Bill was in place, it would have required that the private club would have to conduct a fair hearing before refusing the admission of those women to the club. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in this Bill, we have also proposed that before a person comes or goes to court, seeking judicial review of a decision, he ought to confirm that the internal mechanisms of that particular body have been covered. Using the same example of the ladies who were barred from a private club, it would have required that if the rules of that club required that there should be a hearing, the court would not take action until it has confirmed that they were, in fact, given a hearing. We have also separated the question of judicial review and review generally and the reason is as follows; Under Order 53 of Civil Procedure Act, which is made pursuant to the Law Reform Act, Sections 8 and 9, where we lifted the British Jurisdiction of 1926 and never bothered to amend it. Many Kenyans have suffered in terms of getting the order of certiorari which is limited to six months without any reasons or any provision for extension. Therefore, the persons who have gone to court, where they have discovered that administrative action was taken and the person who was supposed to take the action was supposed to give the decision to the person simply sat on the decision and gave it after six months. This Bill is now attempting to address that, so that we have left it to the court to determine whether a person has not exercised their right without any unreasonable delay, therefore, then giving the court room to deal with it. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in our Committee, we provided for some amendments to say that every person is required to get a reason for the decision. For example, if a person is unhappy with a teacher, police officer or any other person and decides to transfer them to Mandera without giving any reason, this Bill requires that those reasons must be provided. If those reasons are not provided, once this Bill becomes law, that action without reason will be deemed to have been made in bad faith. We are, therefore, protecting persons who were acting and using their power and positions to harass their juniors, so that they would be compelled under the Fair Administrative Action Bill (National Assembly Bill No. 10 of 2015) to give reasons within a specific period. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has stated that if you wake up one day and transfer a teacher from Makueni to Loitoktok, you do not need 90 days to give reasons. The National Assembly had left it at 90 days. To me, 30 days is more than adequate to do so. We have expanded the meaning of ‘administrator’ or the person who is supposed to have taken action to include private and public bodies. The reason we have done so, is that even in the private sector, there are rules that require some element of fair 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."
}