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{
    "id": 706510,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/706510/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 167,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kaluma",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1565,
        "legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
        "slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker. Among our national values and principles of governance is the rule of law. If we take time and read Article 10 of the Constitution, we will notice that. An element of the rule of law is that all Kenyans, whatever their station in life, are subject to the due process of the law as administered by our courts of law. This is so that whether it is Hon. Kaluma or the people I represent in Homa Bay, if we are at fault with the law, we are subject to the courts and the decisions that courts make. This Contempt of Court Bill will join the list of the very many good Bills that the 11th Parliament is going into history as the Parliament which has had courage to bring up. The law of contempt of court in Kenya is still dependant on the law in England. The substantive law on contempt is something anybody seeking to research on law has to go through several pieces of legislation, to an extent that for legal practitioners, you do not know ultimately where to put your hand when you have a situation of contempt. You could refer to the Judicature Act that this Bill seeks to repeal. A mere Section 5 has been treated as a substantive law. Section 5 of the Judicature Act refers you to the procedure regarding contempt of law, which currently is Order 52 of the English Supreme Court Practice Rules. Therefore, in terms of our treatment of this law, we are still going to England. You have contempt of injunctions being provided for under Order 40 of the same procedure rules, but again, in terms of injunctions only. A realm of contempt which has not been treated properly is what this Bill is seeking to deal with. I am talking about contempt in the face of the court, that is, contempt in facie curiae or the area of criminal content. For once, this law seeks to be one-stop legislation for all matters dealing with contempt, whether it is contempt of a court order in the nature of civil contempt or contempt by the fact that you have insulted the authority of the courts or you have undermined the court in the course of its proceedings. We have had cases where accused persons even throw faeces at courts of law and yet the courts do not know how to deal with them. So, you have a situation in which a judicial officer is being abused in the course of proceedings. There are cases where a magistrate is attacked in his or her person, but essentially, because of want of clarity on matters to do with contempt we have had difficulties dealing with that. Hon. Speaker, we are legislating the entire law on contempt. There has been a bit of clarity even though we go through several pieces of legislation in the area of contempt committed by individual persons. However, it has not been clear how you treat contempt by companies or bodies corporate. In such cases, do you go for the Accounting Officer, the PS or do you go for the CS in charge of the Ministry that is engaging in an act we consider contemptuous? What is the procedure? For once, this Bill is making it clear. Where you have a parastatal or a Government institution being contemptuous of court process, this Bill makes it clear how you would process that matter. The Bill tells you that you will first give notice. It goes ahead to propose a period, which I would like to request the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to substantially reduce. This is because to require a party against whom a Government agency is committing contempt to give a whole 90 day period before he can move court for leave to actionise an action for contempt, is deliberately very long. For once, it is being made clear to you that in that situation where it is a Government institution in contempt, then, The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}