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{
    "id": 633552,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/633552/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 453,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, for example, scrutinising all the Bills instead of concentrating on the statutory instruments only. Madam Temporary Speaker, the main object of this Bill is to ensure that all the regulatory making authorities undertake appropriate consultations because consultation was lacking. Through this Bill, the culture of public awareness or public participation will be enhanced because it is not only done at the national level in the Senate or the National Assembly. This will go down to the county level and everybody will have a say when any law is brought up or is being enacted. They will scrutinize and find out if it is aligned to our Constitution, values of Kenyans or what the authors of the mother Act wanted. This will protect the nation and ensure that we have high quality standard of drafting of legislations to ensure legal effectiveness, clarity and intelligibility to the anticipated users. That means that wherever the drafters are, whether in local or international arena, they can wake up and say that these are the legislations we have. When people compare notes, they could say they participated in drafting certain legislations in our country which is Kenya. I am very proud to state that most countries especially in Africa look up to the Constitution of Kenya which is the mother-law of all the laws in this country when coming up with their legislations. Madam Temporary Speaker, procedure is very important because statutory instruments are very legal and get technical at times. When you omit one procedure it becomes challengeable. I have stated that if you did not do consultation then that could be challenged in court. You will find that if a regulation is not presented for scrutiny before committees on delegated legislation at the county level in charge of these Bills or statutory instruments, then that on its own could be challengeable. It could be challenged in a court of law after having a law which has been properly enacted. A good example is regulations which were brought by the former Cabinet Secretary for Education, Prof. Kaimenyi. There was hue and cry and they had to be withdrawn. Even the regulations that concerned churches or religious groups were affected since there was no proper public participation and they had to be withdrawn. These are some of the things that could be prevented to ensure that the Government does not waste resources because coming up with legislation is not easy. It takes a lot of time, money and many other things. It becomes an embarrassment and waste of time for people to use resources and then something is challenged and withdrawn. That was the reason why the Committee on Delegated Legislation of the Senate had to come up with this Bill, because there is the Statutory Instruments Act which governs all the regulations and the statutory instruments that we as the Senate will be looking at. So, our counterparts at county assemblies also required legislation which will enable them perform their duties and conduct the oversight of the executive properly. I beg to support."
}