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{
    "id": 705994,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/705994/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 291,
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    "content": "thereafter, as a nation, go to an international body which oversees that treaty and plead that you cannot adhere to parts of the treaty because of your own internal laws. In other words, we cannot plead that because of our internal laws in our Constitution and so on, we cannot adhere to a certain treaty which we freely entered into. Sometimes, the danger of just allowing one arm of Government like the Legislature to be involved in the ratification of treaties is that you do not have a double protection to ensure that that treaty does not conflict in any way with our Constitution. If it conflicts with the Constitution, we may need some amendments to our Constitution to allow the treaty to be ratified and be given forth in this country. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I am saying this because we have heard a few nations like the Republic of South Africa saying that they want to withdraw from the Rome Statute. Burundi has also given notice that they want to withdraw from the obligations and the Treaty and so is the Republic of Gambia. I was in the United States of America (USA) in the General Assembly when this matter was being discussed. The Ambassador clearly stated that unless that the Rome Statute is fundamentally reformed, it will be very difficult even for Kenya to continue adhering to the treaty. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, through the International Crimes Act, we have ratified that particular Bill. Can you imagine the National Assembly making amendments to the International Crimes Act alone without us being involved? This Bill that has been brought by Sen. Haji is very timely because if that issue comes up and we have to withdraw from the Rome Statute and the National Assembly approves and we think that is enough, we are now giving notice that we as Senate will be saying that it is not enough. It is important that the matter is also discussed before the National Assembly. The history of what has been going on between us and the National Assembly and the history of what has happened in respect of this Bill has been outlined quite clearly by my Vice Chair, Sen. Sang, and I do not have to repeat what he said. I thank the Committee for coming up with this legislation. As the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, I want to add that we also considered this Bill. It came to us and we gave it our approval. The Senate must be involved. Treaties concern the relationship between this country and other countries. Therefore, I cannot agree to a decision that that relationship is based on illegality in the international law to some extent. Therefore, treaties entered into by this country can be decided without the involvement of the Senate which is the “Upper” House. All over the world, even in USA, when it comes to issues which touch on your relationship with other countries and where you have a bicameral parliament, the senate has been involved. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in furtherance of this idea, I hope that the amendments that had been proposed to the Constitution through the Committee that we ourselves set up will be looked into after the general elections in order to amend the Constitution properly, so that all these issues, including what we are discussing today, are made very clear. If my memory is right, there were some proposed amendments about the role of the Senate. It was going to be made very clear that the Senate must be involved. That clarification is necessary because of the tendency of the National Assembly to think that where the word “Parliament” is mentioned, it connotes the National Assembly alone to the exclusion of the Senate. The provisions of the Constitution are very clear. 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"
}