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{
    "id": 588976,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/588976/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 212,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Anyango",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 130,
        "legal_name": "Dalmas Anyango Otieno",
        "slug": "dalmas-otieno"
    },
    "content": "Clause 29 should not just provide that the Principal Judge shall oversee the implementation of performance management. No. There has to be a performance review committee within the High Court that would report to the Principal Judge and the Chief Justice their continuous evaluation and monitoring, including the continuous personal development of the judges. We have some average judges who are comfortable to be judges up to age 70 years and they are making no more effort to do a better job at the Bench. There has to be an administrative unit that will enforce change of attitude, enhance performance, personal development and elimination of corruption. That requires a unit complete with a secretariat and intelligence officers who are legally qualified to monitor the performance of judges and review them annually, not after five or ten years. That is so that we can save our Judiciary from the adverse negative influence of our current political practice, where so many of us politicians would even wish to get away with murder and wish there were no laws yet they are the people who are making those laws. So, there has to be a provision aiming at implementing the Constitution in the application of this legislation. Article 165 has a structure within it that would change the attitude of judicial officers, the judges and officers working in the Judiciary, to be able to enforce the personal development of those judges with recommendations, some mentorship, some counselling and some discussions within forums that are respectable in accordance with the kind of Judiciary we should have. As of now, if we leave it like this and you go out there and do a survey whether public confidence or trust in the Judiciary is going up, you will find it has not improved, yet we have a new Constitution. As we are now, there are people who believe that the law is for the small people. It is a fault of our society. We will have to do something to change the governance of this country in that regard. But, what does it mean? If a small person is in the High Court or the Magistrate’s Court with a socially, politically or financially more powerful person, there should be an organ within the judicial system monitoring the fair treatment of the weakling before the law, so that you can have true rule of the law in our country. That unit is missing and I think that is what Millie Odhiambo and Ferdinand Wanyonyi were requesting me to mention as much as I had told them of it themselves. The business provisions are, usual, insufficient. There has to be new clauses that will address the necessary change of attitude, change of productivity and the necessary enhancement of standards in the Judiciary so that Kenyans will have maximum of our judicial system. It may help our other organs of governance as we see them today, and which we may have to address under other forums. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker."
}