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{
    "id": 577576,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/577576/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 26,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "In this regard, therefore, if mediation processes were to apply to Bills seeking to amend the Constitution, then it would negate the very essence for which the Constitution was made. Article 113(4) of the Constitution as read with Standing Order No.149(6) provides that if a Mediation Committee fails to agree on a version of a Bill to be presented to both Houses for approval, the Bill will be deemed to have been defeated and negatived. A Bill to amend the Constitution may be termed as one that forms part of the engine which seeks to propel the aspirations of Kenyans as a people. Consequently, the drafters of the Constitution could not have intended to dilute, or hamper, any avenue, or channel, for Kenyans to do so by subjecting a Bill to amend the Constitution to mediation processes, which have the potential of ending in a cul desac, where the mediation committee fails to agree on a version of the Bill. Hon. Members, consciously aware that the House looks to the Speaker to decide on procedural questions that arise in the House, I am, therefore, of the opinion that a plain reading of Article 256 of the Constitution clearly reveals that while the Constitution does not expressly disallow amendments to a Bill proposing to amend any of its Articles, it deliberately discourages such amendments unless there is anything extraordinary in the proposed Bill that would require application of the extraordinary measures. In this regard, I am constrained not to allow any amendment to the Bill proposed by the Member for Ugenya or, indeed, any of the other four Bills proposing to amend the Constitution. This now settles the first question. You can now allow the Members by the door to come in."
}