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{
    "id": 665447,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/665447/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 332,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Ong’era",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13117,
        "legal_name": "Janet Ongera",
        "slug": "janet-ongera"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this opportunity to also support this Motion. From the outset, let me join my colleagues in congratulating the leadership of this House and our Speaker for inviting Dr. Willy Mutunga to give us his farewell remarks. As we all know, Dr. Mutunga has led an exemplary career in terms of the legal practice and also as a distinguished scholar in this country. He is a renowned activist who has fought for the human rights of our people in our society and for the rule of law and constitutionalism. We need to commend him on this. I particularly want to highlight two major reforms that he carried out in the Judiciary, which are very commendable. The first one was on gender mainstreaming. The gender ratio between men and women in the Judiciary today stands at between 45 and 50 per cent. In fact, to quote from his speech, he told us yesterday that we have achieved near perfect gender parity in the Judiciary. In 2011, the Court of Appeal had no woman judge. Now, out of 25 Judges in the Court, eight are women. This is no mean achievement and he deserves great commendation on this reform. The second reform that really touches my heart is employment of people with disabilities which increased from a ratio of 0.1 to 1.2 per cent. This is really commendable. The other achievement which I need to highlight is that during Dr. Mutunga’s tenure as the Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court, he tried very hard to lay a foundation which would make the Judicial Service a humane court. For the first time, we saw that the Judiciary was having workshops or retreats which attracted Kenyans from all walks of life. He demystified the secrets of the High Court. This is very impressive because he brought justice closer to the people. Therefore, these are things that we cannot just rubbish or sweep under the table. However, despite all these glowing reforms, there are two grey areas during Dr. Mutunga’s tenure, which I want to point out and Kenyans would remember with great loss."
}