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{
    "id": 620635,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/620635/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 359,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Waiganjo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2644,
        "legal_name": "John Muriithi Waiganjo",
        "slug": "john-muriithi-waiganjo"
    },
    "content": "people to be accredited to give legal aid should be the advocates who are already in the Panel of the Chief Justice giving pro bono services. The accreditation of the service providers is an important aspect of this Bill because we have a lot of groups that offer legal aid. Some of them are genuine while others are fake. We have good ones like the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA) who have done a lot of work for the women of this country. Unfortunately, we do not have any agency that supports men in this regard. We already know that men are suffering the most in terms of child support and family matters. Therefore, once we have an agency giving legal aid, we must also give this service provider the mandate to accredit these groups, so that any group that is accredited becomes a genuine group. It becomes a group that has advocates who will carry to finality the cases that come before the court. I see the people that qualify under this Legal Aid Bill and I hope we will expand this because even when we say the child, we want to know the quality of legal representation that the child gets. What about the mother of that child who perhaps is an indigent, but with a child? I am very happy about the refugees under the Refugees Act. Under victims of human trafficking at this period in time, I think the country is entertaining human trafficking openly. We have our young sisters who are held hostage in foreign counties. We hear cries of these foreign agencies pretending to be people who are giving jobs to our women, but when they go to the Middle East they are held there. That is human trafficking. We do not seem to realise this and we ignore it. I am aware that in our remand prisons, Stateless persons are Kenyans who do not have Identity Cards (IDs), but who are grouped as Stateless persons. Clause 37 talks about the people who should not be granted legal aid. I am a little worried about Clause 37(g) which says that this category cannot be given legal aid. It says that:- “The Service shall not provide legal aid services in respect of civil proceedings─ (g)In which a company, civil society or non-governmental organisation or other artificial person is a plaintiff in the proceedings.” Does that mean that an indigent person cannot be a defendant in specific proceedings? It is a good Bill, but it requires some amendments, so that once we roll it out, we can be sure that Kenyans will access justice. I also want to point out Clause 13 on the filling of a vacancy of the board. We are throwing this back to the Cabinet Secretary (CS) forgetting that within this board, there are representations of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), the Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHRC), Paralegal bodies, the Public Benefits Organisations (PBOs) and religious bodies. I do not see how the Cabinet Secretary will give these replacements without the input of these agencies that will sit on the board. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I support the Bill and I thank you."
}