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{
    "id": 65088,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/65088/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 376,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Eng. Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you look at those functions of the JSC, then it becomes the effective employer of judges and magistrates in Kenya. My view is that to allow nominees in Article 171(f) of the Constitution to appear in court and to represent clients constitutes a serious conflict of interest. I will be pleading with Members that, as a country, we should take the step to divorce offices from individuals. This issue has come up even in court and whenever it comes up, we look at the individuals, for example, Ms. Mwangangi and Lawyer Ahmed Nassir. I am just looking at a hypothetical situation where one or the other of these two nominees appear in a magistrate court in Turkana, the magistrate knows that these individuals, at some point, will be responsible for appraising the performance for training. I am to be convinced that the places of these individuals will not tilt justice in their favour. In that respect, I will, therefore, be proposing an amendment to Clause 18 of the proposed Bill, by introducing Clause 18(d). Clause 18, generally deals with Commissioners to relinquish certain offices. I will be proposing an amendment to introduce Clause 18(d), so that a lawyer in private practice, who appears for clients in court, will have to be excluded from being a member. He should give up one position. I want to state clearly that we are not trying to stop anybody from practising law. My basic understanding of this arrangement, as somebody who is not trained in law, is that it is not in the interest of anybody to ask an employer to seek justice from an employee, which is what will happen in some of these cases. I will be pleading with my colleagues to look at it beyond the two individuals who have been nominated and let us have an amendment. My colleagues have told me that this is happening in some jurisdictions particularly in the West where lawyers in private practice are nominated to sit in commissions, but we have had our problems. We are still maturing as a democracy. The vested interests that play all the time in Kenyan politics and daily lives are not lost to us. It will be nice to apply that caution by making that amendment and I will be pleading with my colleagues to support it. Finally, Clause 47 allows the Commission to make regulations for the better carrying out of the purposes of this Act. We have argued this matter before. You will recall that when the proposed amendments to the Health Insurance Act were brought to the House and the Minister discussed the merits here, the Members were surprised that those regulations were never brought to the House. We were told that the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) Act does not require the Minister to bring such regulations for the approval of the House. Consequently, when we debated the Bill on the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution, we pushed forward the requirement that any regulations must be brought to the House, debated and approved by the House before the Commission can bring them into force. I also intend to introduce Clause 47(d) in the proposed Bill to require the Commission to make regulations for the better carrying out of the purposes of this Act and the day to day running of its activities and bring them to the House, so that we can debate and approve them before they are brought into force. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}