HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 591365,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/591365/?format=api",
"text_counter": 88,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr.",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13156,
"legal_name": "Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
"slug": "mutula-kilonzo-jnr"
},
"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I rise to second this Motion. I will deal with four thematic areas as to how we arrived at this. From the outset, I thank the Committee Members and the Secretariat for having availed themselves to many, about 20, meetings that we had. This document has neither leaked to the Press nor discussed anywhere yet it would have found its way out to the public before we presented it. Madam Temporary Speaker, the Committee was known as “the Murkomen Committee.” My Chairman delved into some details on this. I just want to put it into perspective the motive, experiences on the process and summarize how we arrived at the conclusions that we have. In terms of the experiences, there has been concern in this Republic about why we need to amend the Constitution. Five years later, the experiences in other jurisdictions - I have three - show that we have waited for too long to consider whether or not we need to amend the Constitution. In India, the Constitution was adopted in 1950. However, 18 months later, that was 18th June, 1951, the first amendment was made. Since then, several amendments have been made. The amendment on affirmative action is actually amendment No.208 in the Republic of India. Therefore, we are doing poorly in that respect. Secondly, in the United States of America (USA), the Constitution was ratified on 21st June, 1788. The first amendment was done on 25th September, 1789. That was one year and three months later. Back home in South Africa, the Constitution came into effect on 4th February, 1997. The first amendment was done on 29th August, 1997. That was six months and two weeks later. Therefore, Madam Temporary Speaker, in terms of experience and research, this Committee has made the inevitable conclusion that this is the right time to consider the proposed amendments to our Constitution. We agreed unanimously that we would not get into what has been described in the Press quite wrongly as “a superiority debate” between the National Assembly and Senate. Our motivation was to protect the institution of the Senate and Chapter 11 of the Constitution. For the record, we have quoted Advisory Opinion No.2 of the Supreme Court where we challenged our participation in the Division of Revenue Bill. Allow me to quote what the Supreme Court said just for the sake of record:- “Kenya has had a long but checkered history with decentralization. The country has experienced all three main aspects of decentralization; deconcentration, delegation and now, devolution. These have had political, administrative and physical dimensions. Most of these efforts have been inspired by fear of domination and discomfort with rising horizontal inequalities on one hand and, on the other, a desire to take resources and services closer to the people. In this respect, decentralization has been a product of both fear and aspiration and emotionally mixed venture. This fact has been a major element in the country’s tribulations.” Madam Temporary Speaker, the Supreme Court further said that at Independence, Kenya adopted the most radical form of decentralization which had regional assemblies, 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."
}