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"id": 748701,
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"speaker_name": "Hon. Kajwang’",
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"legal_name": "Tom Joseph Kajwang'",
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"content": "Having said that, allow me to disabuse those who are in the Committee who, in my view, were misled by the ruling of the East African Court of Justice. This case is clearly distinguishable from what we have. In that case, what happened was that the partner state, which is Kenya, decided to present names to EALA without passing through these chambers. In that case, the partner State which is Kenya decided to present names to East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) without passing through this Chamber. The court said that the meaning of election in that treaty is that it must pass through this Chamber for some type of election. The partner states cannot abrogate themselves any right to send delegations to Arusha without passing here. So, you can see that in the ruling, they are explaining exactly what election means. I think that the Committee should look at this. For example, in Page 10, they said that: “In our considered view, the decision to constitute the National Assembly of each partner States into an electoral college was a deliberate step towards establishing a legislature comprising people of representatives.” They said that every National Assembly should be an electoral college. Sometimes it is good to have people discussing things in their areas of expertise. If you have people trying to summarise law, then they debate issues which are not---. On Page 34, they say: “In the view of the foregoing, we find it very unlikely that in adopting Article 50 that the treaty contemplated that members would be elected in any other way than a voting procedure.” This means that these names must be brought here and be voted for. This ruling has nothing to do with the process of nomination. The problem we are now having in political parties, and I can see it is being drawn into EALA, is confusing matters of nomination and election. Nomination is the process by which electoral candidates offer and position themselves for the election process. The issue of how these people arrive from political parties is a nomination affair. Next week when we are called to vote, that will be an election. At this point, we are doing nomination. Nominees cannot tell a coach how to position his people. He will position the right people, in the right content and in the right frame to be able to fight the other side. Fortunately, the rules that we have, have said that you only present at least three but not more than nine. That is very clear. If somebody has a problem with that, you first of all need to amend that rule. You must amend that rule. You cannot fail to amend that rule and force the coach to do something that the law does not intend that he should do. As I end, because this is very clear in my mind, I like the recommendation by the Committee because first of all, they have captured the spirit in recommendation number one, on how these things should be divided amongst parties. In Recommendation No.2, they seem to be capturing the spirit of the Constitution. However, I do not know how the Committee was misled by quoting this case in which some of us could have been called to offer free legal advice on the effect of this case and the rules that we are talking about. Now, when it comes to recommendation number four, it is true that Rule 6 should be amended. I think that is correct. It should be amended so that political parties have some criteria beyond what has been provided in law. When it comes to recommendations number 5, 6 and 7, it would seem that the recommendation is all about Coalition of Reforms and Democracy (CORD). That CORD should present more names so that this process should go on. I beg to differ. The rule as it is now, mandates the political parties to bring within the prescribed numbers that are there. I think CORD has done that. If you have a problem with it, and people can have problems with it, first of all amend the rule. If you have not amended the rule, these are now nominees before us. When we will be called to vote, we may decide that some of those people cannot be elected. We 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."
}