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{
    "id": 692284,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/692284/?format=api",
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    "content": "a Member of my Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. The Temporary Speaker together with Sen. Sang are my adopted sons when it comes to matters of the Senate. I am proud that my child is in the Chair, but exercise your rights if I overstep the Standing Orders; I will take it well. The Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Minority Leader have explained the clauses of the Bill that we are about to approve. I am quite sure that Members have read them because they adopted the Report which had these two Bills. Therefore, I will not dwell much on the Bill itself. The Member who said that public hearings had not been conducted may not have been in the House when I was introducing the other report. I said that although the two Bills were referred to us yesterday, in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution, we conducted public hearings. Page 14 of the Report will mention those organisations that submitted to us. They include the Inter-Religious Council of Kenya (IRCK), the Committee on Administrative Justice, which submitted a written report and the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), which also made written submissions in support of the Bill. Although we had a short time we adhered to that and the public participated. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I want to comment on the issue of party-hopping. This is an issue that has been on the public domain for quite some time. It really engaged us, as a Committee. Maybe, had there been a policy decision that allowed independent candidates after nomination, then the time schedules set out in Clauses 10 and 11 of the Bill would have been different. They would have been different because under Article 85 of the Constitution independent candidates are allowed. I was a member of the committee that allowed independent candidates. The main issue was that political parties – as we know them - did not have the internal democracy to ensure that free and fair primary elections are undertaken. Therefore, we wanted to give that opportunity to those who felt aggrieved to stand as independent candidates. Included in that was the introduction of the new political culture of independent candidates. Article 85 (a) of the Constitution provides that:- “Any person is illegible to stand as an independent candidate for elections if the person is not a member of a registered political party and has not been a member for at least three months immediately before the date of elections.” Therefore, one is allowed to be a member of a political party, but if they want to stand as an independent candidate, they should not be a member of any party. They should have resigned from that party, according to the requirement of the Constitution, at least three months before the election date. If the election is in August and you want to stand as an independent candidate, and you are a member of a political, you should resign from that party at least three months plus one day, so that by election date you have not been a member of any political party. That is a constitutional requirement. Therefore, to that extent the law provides that every political party shall submit names of the party candidates who have been selected to participate in the general election at least 60 days before the election. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, before the election if you have to wait for the nomination to be completed before the 60 days and then you resign, it means you will not have been a member of that political party. The Constitution requires that you should have been a member for 90 days and that is why the party-hopping cannot take place after nomination. 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."
}