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{
    "id": 620626,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/620626/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 350,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Oyoo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2408,
        "legal_name": "James Onyango Oyoo",
        "slug": "james-onyango-oyoo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this very valuable Bill. The Bill has come at a very good time. It is long overdue. There is a saying that if God likes you, there are two things he must help you skip, namely, bad health and anything that draws you near to something that entails that you get legal attention. This is because legal services have become too costly. This step should have been taken long time ago to remedy the situation of the downtrodden, who are very many in this country. Unlike other concepts that the Government has started in frivolous manner and then they have been dropped by the roadside for lack of proper budgetary provision or focus, I believe this will be taken with vigour and seriousness that it deserves. In the absence of this, a considerable number of the populace have had to rely on few NGOs that have been providing similar concepts, little known to Kenyans that this has been to the benefit of those NGOs. They have been using the plight of the downtrodden to elicit a lot of funding from donors abroad. They have had very little time and arrangement for the perceived beneficiaries. With regard to the composition of this legal body, I suggest that in making appointments, the Government should go in tandem with the new constitutional dispensation. In the new constitutional dispensation, we have eliminated the role of the President as the appointing authority for serious organisations. This being a legal concept, I urge my colleagues that the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs should advise the Attorney-General to make sure that at the tail end of the Bill, this body is supervised by the Chief Justice or the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) together with the Members of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly and that of the Senate. This should be done in a way that will ensure that the beneficiaries are those who are cannot afford legal services. Their plight should be taken care of. The Fund should grow. It should not be underfunded. Competent officers should be appointed to man it, so that we do not have a body that comes into effect tomorrow and lacks funds to run its affairs. We should not have lawyers who are not equal to the task to man the body."
}