Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 758783,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/758783/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 36,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Gikaria",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2489,
        "legal_name": "David Gikaria",
        "slug": "david-gikaria"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. I rise to second the Motion on appointment of Members to the Chairperson’s Panel. At this juncture, it is important to read Standing Order No. 16(4) which says: “Whenever a Motion for approval under paragraph (3) is moved in the House, no objection against the proposed membership on the Chairperson’s Panel of any particular Member shall be permitted and objections, if any, shall be formulated and considered against the proposed membership as a whole.” It is important for us to realise that the House has no mandate to change, unless we want to have a change of the whole Chairperson’s Panel. As the Whip of the Majority Party just said, the composition is coming from both the Majority side and the Minority side. We have had a problem of this gender issue in the past. It is important for the Judiciary to notice and note that Parliament is now moving towards a direction of trying to have the two-thirds gender rule complied to. You can see it is almost a half and a half; that is 50 per cent for each gender. It is important for us to understand. Secondly, I am not privy to any information about Hon. Patrick Mariru. I hope we will be seeing much of him. I want to talk about Hon. Roselinda Soipan. She was a Chairperson of one of the Committees in the 11th Parliament, the Committee on Implementation. She did so well, being a lawyer by profession. I want to thank the Majority Party. When they were picking the First Chairperson of the Committee, they decided to pick a lady. In the last Parliament, we had a male Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of the opposite gender. This time, both are male. I think it was a wise decision to bring in Hon. Soipan. Hon. Members, the First Chairperson is the one who takes over if the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker are not there. Of course, the Whip of the Majority Party has just mentioned that it was not only about the gender issue. Qualification and competence also matter. Hon. Soipan is very competent and eloquent. She understands the law. So, we will have a person who will fit into the position where you were, Hon. Deputy Speaker, in the last Parliament. Madam Soipan is going to fit into your shoes, if not better. The other person is Jessica Mbalu. She did very well, exemplarily very well in the last Parliament. We appreciate though she gave me very few moments to contribute. I hope she will, now that I am also seconding, give me more time. She is a very competent Chairperson. The Fourth Chairperson is my friend Hon. Omulele. Hon. Christopher Omulele is a renowned lawyer. I wish people had an opportunity and they are of course going to have one, when he will be chairing. We appreciate the kind of work you did in the last Parliament. More importantly is to remind the four Members the need to take a bipartisan position. They should never take sides. That is what happened in the last Parliament. We were so happy about what happened. It is unfortunate very good lawyers like Daniel Maanzo could not find their way into this panel. Again, I want to say Omulele is equal to the task. We saw the likes of Daniel Maanzo, Hon. Kaluma and others just the other day at the Supreme Court. We want to take this position to thank the Minority for having picked Christopher Omulele and for the balancing aspect of the four names; the two ladies and Members coming from diverse regions of this country. This panel will do a great job to exercise their mandate and enable Parliament undertake its role in legislative matters like looking into Motions and things like those. This is a team that 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."
}