Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 762620,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/762620/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1115,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "The Member for Uasin Gishu County",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "(Hon. (Ms.) Gladys Jepkosgei Boss Shollei): Hon. Speaker and fellow Members, it is my pleasure to take the Floor of this august House not only to make remarks on the business at hand, which is the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2017, but also to make my maiden speech as is the parliamentary tradition. I want to start by thanking the people of Uasin Gishu County, the home of champions, the source of champions and the city of champions, for choosing me as their representative. I will endeavour to do my utmost to articulate issues and legislate matters that are dear to their hearts. I am honoured to be in this Chamber. I would also like to point out that, indeed, I have now served in all the three arms of the Government. I served in the Executive as CEO of the National Council for Law Reporting, as Deputy CEO at the electoral commission, and as the Chief Registrar and finally now in this National Assembly as a legislator. And on a light note, I can now say I am a total public servant. The import of this brief history is that I have interacted with electoral laws in various capacities and stages of my public service life. At the IEBC, then the electoral commission, which was formed after the 2007 violence, and also as part of the recommendations by the Kriegler Report, we were able to run the first ever referendum in the history of Kenya, which gave birth to the current Constitution. This was the first time that technology was used for biometric registration in that particular election. In 2013, while at the Judiciary as Chief Registrar, we handled the first presidential election petition under the new Constitution, where incidentally the use of technology was also an issue in question before that court. Hon. Speaker, following the 2013 decision, Parliament made amendments to the electoral laws to cure the perceived shortcomings that were raised in the 2013 Presidential Elections Petition. At that time, indeed, the majority decision recognised that the amendments were necessary and that all these legislative enactments that needed to be undertaken were to ensure conformity with the Constitution so that elections would be free and fair. Interestingly, we are here yet again to address perceived shortcomings in our laws that were raised by the 2017 Presidential Election Petition in our courts. Review of laws in general and in principle shows our willingness to adapt to new thinking on the evolving situations, hence the reason why I support these current amendments. If you recall our history, in the year 2007 the Kriegler Report, recommendations were made for new electoral laws. At that time, our predecessors in this Parliament managed to pass a law establishing a new body called the IEBC which was supposed to manage elections. It also required the IEBC to implement electronic systems for managing, tallying and sending the elections results. All these recommendations have largely been implemented by the electoral commission. The recommendations of the Kriegler Report also did not only stop at elections management, but included electoral dispute resolutions. This is reason why our predecessors in this Parliament were able to pass legislation that put a statutory onto the amount of time that you can hear an election petition, hence the limit to six months which we are benefiting from today. 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."
}