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{
    "id": 705992,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/705992/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 289,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wako",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 366,
        "legal_name": "Amos Sitswila Wako",
        "slug": "amos-wako"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak on this important Bill. It is a Bill that has been brought by the Chairperson of the Committee which deals not only with national defence but also foreign relations. It is appropriate that I speak on this Bill because I have just come from New York and last Friday, we had elections to the International Law Commission which is one of the five organs of the United Nations. The organs under the United Nations Charter include; the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice and the International Law Commission. I was re-elected for another five-year term starting January 2017. The International Law Commission is concerned with codification and progressive development of international law. In fact, at our last session in May, we were concerned about the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties. What came out clearly is that there is now a developing international law that needs codification on the way treaties are ratified. In this country, under the old Constitution, there is one main method but there are really two methods of ratifying treaties. One was Cabinet decision that a treaty can be ratified. However, under the new Constitution, the treaty can only be ratified by approval of Parliament. This is a very important part of legislation in this country. Article 2(5) comes after the word “Any law” including customary law that is inconsistent with this Constitution is void to the extent of its inconsistency. After that, we have paragraph 5 and 6. Paragraph 5 talks about the general rules of international law. In the process of ratification and the country adhering to the provisions of the international customary law and the provisions of the treaty that has freely entered into, it may very well be that that treaty could supersede a bit of the Constitution. For example, if under the current Constitution, Kenya entered into an obligation or a union with a neighbouring country, then that treaty can only be entered into by amending the Constitution of Kenya to permit that union to take place. When one talks about issues of integrity, it is the whole purpose of integration, particularly economic and political integration. It is about a nation ceding part of its sovereignty to a larger body like the African Union or the East African Community and so on. So, to the extent that a legislation that is ratified in a treaty can have those effects in Kenya, it becomes important that that legislation has to be endorsed by Parliament under Article 94. Under Article 94, Parliament has to protect the Constitution and promote democratic governance of the Republic. We cannot protect the Constitution as Parliament unless we are also involved in the ratification of the treaties. Ratification of treaties can have a very serious impact on the current Constitution. In fact, I am sure the “King of Meru” will agree with me that even when we were in college, it was more or less taken for granted that where a nation has entered into an obligation under a treaty, you cannot, 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"
}