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{
    "id": 725582,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/725582/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 273,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wako",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 366,
        "legal_name": "Amos Sitswila Wako",
        "slug": "amos-wako"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to speak on this very important Motion. I wish to thank Sen. (Dr.) Zani for having brought it to this House. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is a pity that at this point in time when we should be focused on having a peaceful election and so on, we are inundated by a number of industrial actions on the part of very important professionals in this country. It reminds me that maybe somewhere, the lesson that a stitch in time saves nine has not been learnt. I am quite sure that had this matter been focused upon as soon as the Jubilee Government came to power, by now we would not be having these wildcat strikes. But because there was some overlook for not paying due attention to these serious issues which were being raised by doctors and university lecturers, they have been left to the last possible moment. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, soon after Independence, we had wildcat strikes in this country. The then Minister for Labour, Hon. Thomas Joseph Mboya, one of the best trade unionists that Kenya and even Africa has ever had, came up with an industrial machinery for settling disputes. In fact, out of that, the Industrial Court was born. During the time of the Industrial Court, we rarely had these types of many strikes at the same time. In fact, the Industrial Court became one of the best known industrial courts in Africa and in the world and many people came from all over the world to see how our Industrial Court was functioning. The Industrial Court was established under an Act of Parliament. So, when the new Constitution was promulgated, Article 162(a) stated that Parliament will enact a legislation on how these courts will function. Indeed, Parliament lived up to its responsibility and enacted the Employment and Labour Relations Act of 2011. Section 3 of that Act is very clear that the principal objective of the Act is to enable the Court to facilitate a just, expeditious, efficient and proportionate resolution of disputes. One has to ask oneself whether the order that was made to commit the leaders of the medical union to prison for contempt of court was an order that would facilitate a just conclusion to the dispute, expeditiously assist in settling the dispute, efficiently promote the settlement of the dispute or whether it was an order that one can say was a proportionate resolution of the dispute. The word “proportionate” is good. I laud Justice Wasilwa for having given the various opportunities for the parties to resolve this dispute. Where I fault her is that as a court, you cannot impose on one side of the dispute this draconian order of “you will be jailed for contempt of court” and leave the other side scott-free, not having the same measure of the draconian order. It would promote one side to take a very lax attitude towards sitting down and promoting this industrial dispute. In fact, my reading of the situation from where I sit, that is exactly what has happened."
}