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{
    "id": 602282,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/602282/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 222,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Chepkong’á",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1154,
        "legal_name": "Samuel Kiprono Chepkonga",
        "slug": "samuel-kiprono-chepkonga"
    },
    "content": "I thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Chairman. Hon. Fatuma is a Member of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs and listening to her, I am very sympathetic. The only reason I am opposing this amendment is because she has not provided for the qualifications of the degree holder. How many years should a degree holder have practised and in what field? The reason she has given is that there are fewer lawyers in this country. Just for her information, last year, there were 800 lawyers who were admitted as advocates. This year, we are going to admit 1,000 lawyers. We do not even have courts as we speak to fit the 1,000 advocates. The nature of these courts is arbitrating over conflicts between two individuals and you need legal training on this issue. If probably, Hon. Fatuma had said that the person should have, at least, a diploma in law then that would have been a totally separate question. As you may be aware, these courts were the ones that we referred to as District Magistrates Courts and were occupied by people called “Article Clerks” who were trained at the Kenya School of Law (KSL), like Hon. Muite. As an Article Clerk, you at least, had to go through legal training. We are going to ask someone who is trained in political science to arbitrate over legal issues, yet the only difference between the Small Claims Courts and other courts is the amount. We have limited it to Kshs100,000 as proposed in the Bill, otherwise it is a court like any other court of law as contained in the Constitution. It is even unconstitutional for someone who is not a lawyer to preside over matters that are in conflict and are provided for under the Constitution. The Constitution is very clear that you need to have someone with legal training. It is not that we do not want other professions to be magistrates or adjudicators."
}