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{
    "id": 592543,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/592543/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 86,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Midiwo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 184,
        "legal_name": "Washington Jakoyo Midiwo",
        "slug": "jakoyo-midiwo"
    },
    "content": "I thank you, Hon. Speaker for delivering your ruling with a lot of curiosity. It seems curious what this ruling is supposed to do. First of all, listening to this ruling, it will have a lot of effect on how legislators and legislative assemblies across this country behave. It seems to me that the governors particularly will take a lot of comfort by drawing and quoting this ruling. I support the fact that you have said you want to create order. I like that because if we are going to impeach the President or a constitutional office holder, we have to have grounds. My only hope is that the ruling shall not be misinterpreted to mean that it is okay to do the kind of lawless things that I see happening across our counties and have the legislative assemblies’ hands tied not to raise the alarm because the threshold is too high. Hon. Duale has raised a very curious point. That is why I am very curious about this ruling. There are impeachment Motions which are going around for signatures. For the Leader of the Majority Party to ask you to try to make a ruling and apply it retroactively it sounds thoroughly suspect. He ought to have given you just that space to make the ruling and not to try to show us that--- He has shown us why this ruling has been made. I have been here for many years and I find it difficult that you, as our leader, would imagine that this ruling is not the way we interpret the laws before us. I know a ruling of this magnitude is usually sought by a Member of Parliament. You have gone further to say that the dictionary defines ‘gross misconduct’ in a different way and our courts have defined it differently. It, therefore, means another Member of Parliament may also define it in a different way. I plead with you that we go the route of your recommendation that the Procedure and House Rules Committee looks at this matter and makes it easy for us, as legislators, to do our work in a way that the Executive is not intimidated but members are also not gagged from doing their work. Hon. Speaker, you raised the very important point of Members of Parliament appending their signature on a petition to deal with an issue concerning a member of the Executive and then withdrawing the signature. The first interpretation it gives the public is that somebody has been seen and you know what that means. When Members rush to sign--- I am not even sure pinning this Motion on a wall somewhere will stop this kind of behaviour. We need to caution ourselves before we get involved in these things. I would be comfortable as a Member of Parliament that a Member who wishes to bring a matter before the Office of the Clerk by following the Standing Orders and the Constitution gets 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."
}