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{
    "id": 665417,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/665417/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 302,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Anyang'-Nyong'o",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 193,
        "legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
        "slug": "peter-nyongo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I am sorry. When I went out to receive a phone call, somebody came and messed up with my seat, but that is okay. As the Chief Justice leaves office today, it is regrettable that he leaves at a time when we are going more or less backwards in terms of the institutionalisation of democracy in this country. What has been happening in this nation in the last three weeks is really a throwback to old times. There is growing authoritarianism. In the last two days, we saw what amounts to detention without trial. The police abuse of people in custody last Monday was in the headlines of our papers. There was a police officer here in Nairobi County directing the police to use maximum force against citizens exercising their rights under the Constitution. This is not a good omen for the kind of society the Chief Justice struggled for. I was with him at the university when he was our chairman for the University Staff Union (USU) which has transformed to a Union so that all workers in the university from a sweeper to the cook, secretary, lecturer and professors could belong to one union because their employer was one person. He removed the previous class distinction between academic staff association and the union as workers under the Domestic and Hotel Workers Union, so that there could be real social equality among product workers in the university. We chose the Chief Justice as our chairman. Unfortunately, almost all of us who were leaders in that union either ended up in detention, police custody or were forced to flee the country as forced immigrants elsewhere in search of peace and freedom. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this is the kind of society that we thought we had left behind. Unfortunately, if you look at Article 51(1) of the Constitution under the rights of persons detained, held in custody or imprisoned, it says:- “A person who is detained, held in custody or imprisoned under the law, retains all the rights and fundamental freedoms in the Bill of Rights, except to the extent that any particular right of fundamental freedom is clearly incompatible with the fact that the person is detained, held in custody or imprisoned.” There cannot be a right incompatible to being healthy because under Article 43 of the Constitution, every Kenyan has a right to health, education and so on. So, when a The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}