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{
    "id": 691894,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/691894/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 50,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "5. Sen. Isaac Melly 6. Sen. Joy Gwendo 7. Sen. George Munyasa Khaniri 8. Sen. Stewart Mwachiru Madzayo 9. Sen. Judith Achieng’ Sijeny 10. Sen. Moses Kajwang’ 11. Sen. Janet Ong’era; to investigate the proposed removal from office of the Governor of Nyeri County and to report to the Senate within ten (10) days of its appointment on whether it finds the particulars of the allegations to have been substantiated. Mr. Speaker, Sir, this is the fifth impeachment proceedings that have found their way to this House. There have been others in the last four years which were attempted, but never succeeded in being delivered from the respective county assemblies to this House. We had the first impeachment process in Embu County. I do not want to repeat what happened because this House is aware that it unanimously adopted the recommendations of the Committee to impeach the Governor of Embu County. That matter has been in court ever since and the matter is still pending before the Supreme Court, awaiting determination 11months to the next general election. The Governor of Embu County continues to serve courtesy of the Judiciary. Mr. Speaker, Sir, during that impeachment process, I am told that the Judiciary attempted to serve us with summons, which was odd. We made our position known at that time - which we still maintain - that one cannot injunct Parliament. You can declare products of a parliamentary process unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful, but you cannot injunct Parliament from doing its work and compel Parliament to pass a legislation. No institution can compel Parliament, for example, to pass a legislation in the way that, that institution, including the Judiciary, thinks it should be passed. It can make a declaration, but the authority and sovereignty of Parliament under the doctrine of separation of powers remains. Mr. Speaker, Sir, after that, we had other counties. We had the issue of the Deputy Governor of Machakos which came to this House. The House decided that there were no adequate grounds to impeach him. There was also an impeachment process regarding Kericho County and this Senate upheld that the grounds for impeaching the Governor of Kericho County had not been substantiated. Thereafter, there was an attempt by the County Assembly of Makueni to impeach the governor. He went to court and it purportedly issued an injunction. For one reason or another that matter took a different turn. Eventually, the impeachment process mutated into an attempt to dissolve the County Government of Makueni. That effort was defeated somewhere along the process when the President rejected the request on the grounds which he stated then. Finally, we had the issue of Murang’a County a few months ago. This Senate, through a Special Committee found that the grounds for impeaching the Governor of Murang’a County had not been substantiated. I am happy that out of those five impeachment processes, it is only in two of them that the Judiciary attempted to interfere with the sovereign authority and mandate of this House to deal with impeachments, through injunctions. I am glad that after some reflections and this House making it clear that, that was something we would not look upon kindly--- After certain institutional engagements, I see a lot of reluctance of late by courts to interfere with the processes of this House. I commend the Judiciary for that approach. 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."
}