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{
    "id": 800633,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/800633/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 193,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "content": "knowledge. As I said in Mombasa, I would like to disclose here that I wrote to His Excellency the President in regard to various legislations including the Miscellaneous (Amendments) Bill which had so many laws apart from this one that concern counties. There is a very growing and dangerous practice that has been there in the National Assembly for a while in relation to ignoring this House in its legislative mandate. It is baffling to even point out that it is one of the many. In the same institutional amendment, you will find out that the Senate was denied the opportunity to deal with matters concerning the environment which were in the Bill, among others, including the Salaries and Remuneration Commission which is an entity that deals with the national and county governments including, the Senate itself. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are many ways of solving this problem. The number one way is whether the President will agree with our position. Unfortunately, the Bill has been signed. That means that it can be republished as a Cabinet directive for amendments so that it can then start from the Senate or the National Assembly, to correct the anomaly. I say this because, if we continue with this tradition where Bills that outrightly concern the functions of county governments are not coming to this House, then nothing stops county governments from disobeying those laws and arguing that it is Parliament and the President who agreed that those Bills do not concern counties. Therefore there will be no reason for them to obey that which does not concern them and has been agreed upon by both Houses that it does not concern them. Secondly, there is a real possibility that more than 100 Bills that have been signed by the President in the last six years can easily be declared unconstitutional. That would lead us to a serious problem because some of those Bills touch on very serious areas in terms of governance of the country. The President had requested that we meet the leadership of the National Assembly and the Senate. Some people will ask here, why the President? That is an important question. I will explain if you give me two minutes. It is the President not just by virtue of being the President of Kenya and his office. It is because it is his constitutional responsibility to assent to Bills. Before assenting to those Bills, it is also his constitutional responsibility to check whether those Bills have been passed accordingly and whether they have gone through the two Houses and if they met the constitutional threshold. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also had a conversation with the Attorney General about the behaviour where the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Majority Leader of one House rush to the President with the Bills and get them assented to one morning---. This is a dangerous behaviour because it can put the President into embarrassment. His duty as the principal advisor of the President is to check those Bills first and tell the President that now that Parliament has done its part and that he can sign them. However, when we rush Bills either from this House or the National Assembly straight to the Presidency without sending them in good time to the Attorney General to look at them, we find ourselves in this legal quagmire. Since the President is out of the country and he had requested us to have a meeting this week before his diary became busy, I request this House to give me another two weeks. Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr., Sen. Olekina, among others who sit in the Senate The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}