{"id":706550,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/706550/?format=json","text_counter":207,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. Kimaru","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":2072,"legal_name":"Anthony Mutahi Kimaru","slug":"anthony-mutahi-kimaru"},"content":"the Committee of the whole House stage, I think there will be need to make amendments so that even the Magistrates’ Courts can indeed try contempt of court. What I would have a problem with, and I do not know how to approach it but eventually before we get to Committee of the whole House stage, is where contempt involves something to do with a judge; presumed insult or contemptuous behaviour towards a presiding judge or magistrate. Would it be fair where the judge is a party to those proceedings for him to preside? Would it be fair for him to preside over his own case? In a case where a judge is involved, maybe somebody is accused of contemptuous action against a judge, would it not be fair for another judge to hear it? But in all other forms of contempt, probably the presiding judge should be able to go through with that. Again, when we talk of people commenting about cases, I heard it a long time ago when Paul Muite and other lawyers, and I think those were some of the cases about the second liberation, were dealing with them. They clearly came out of a court proceeding and declared that proceeding a travesty of justice and nothing much happened. And that was the truth. The court process was a sham, and for them to have said that it was a sham, a travesty of justice, I do not think there was anything overly wrong with that. Criticism of the judicial system should be allowed. I think the public and the consumers of justice have a right to criticise the judicial system. They serve as a conscience of that particular court. When they criticise a court, the court gets a wake-up call, knowing that people are out there watching. And we know that justice should not only be done but must be seen to be done. Even to the very ignorant person about matters justice, they must be convinced that, indeed, whatever justice is being meted out is just. Otherwise, we would elevate courts to a different level. I think at times it is necessary when people are emotional, when people are angered, they would be allowed to come out and objectively criticise such proceedings. What is also very important is that if at any given time matters that you do not agree with in a court have to go to appeal, and we all know how long our system takes to resolve cases in our courts of appeal, then we would see that justice would be delayed in that instance. There was an article in the newspapers yesterday for cases that have run through the courts for over 40 years or nearly half a century, several generations. The beneficiaries of such justice may have exited from the scene. They might have moved on to the next world. Those who needed to go to school, 40 years down the road, if it was a case about property and you had to go to school and that matter was not resolved, you would find that such people would really not benefit if we were to prolong unduly court processes. Overall, I think the proposed legislation on contempt of court is good. I believe, from what I have heard from the lawyers, it tries to consolidate several pieces of legislation and put them into one piece of legislation that will be easy to reference and apply. In that spirit, we will definitely support this proposed legislation."}