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    "id": 811944,
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    "content": "was also in the Committee of Experts. Therefore, he is very familiar with these provisions. I want to persuade the House that this principle of public participation is to bring openness and transparency in governance. In Kenya today we are suffering because we do not observe the principle of transparency and openness in the way we conduct public affairs. Indeed, in the old authoritarian system, the imperial presidency that we had in the Kenya African National Union (KANU) days, the public would never be involved. So long as the authority at State House had required to be given a law that was useful to the Government of the day, Parliament would pass it. There would be objections in Parliament, but the public would never be given opportunity to determine what type of legislation was good for the country. For that reason, we passed legislations during those dark days that, today, would never meet the light of the day. An example is the legislation that related to detention without trial. Those kinds of legislations - I can tell you - if we had this principle of public participation where the citizens were allowed to give their views as to whether or not that was good and in the public interest, many people at that time would have objected to any such legislation. Similarly, when Kenya was turning into a one-party state, if the members of the public were given opportunity to participate and get involved in legislation, I am sure that Section 2(a) of the old Constitution would not have seen the light of day. Indeed, as soon as the then President formed a task force to find out from Kenyans whether they still wanted a one-party system, the answer was “no” all over the country when they went all over the country led by the late Vice-President, George Saitoti. May the Lord rest his soul in peace. Whereas the Government was so quick to pass that legislation, when it went to the people, the people were so quick to reject that kind of system of Government. What I would say in regard to this legislation is that, at least, Parliament to some extent has done what it needs to do. We need to enrich the framework and the mechanism for public participation that is found in the Standing Orders. If this Bill is enacted, it will give further guidelines for effective public participation in the public interest so that the citizenry are not just involved in giving mere opinion, but they should also be involved in governance through public participation. In fact, a lot of jurisprudence that has come out in courts in South Africa and all over the world is that public participation means that when a decision is made that requires public participation, they are not just legislation, but the imprint of that participation for the people who should be seen in that decision, process or legislation. I commend this principle of public participation because a lot of things that are happening today including corrupt conduct and practice in the public service would not have taken place if these principles of public participation were allowed to take place. You would notice from this Bill that even the Judiciary is required to embrace these principles of public participation so that the Chief Justice, under Section 5(2), is the responsible authority to develop guidelines for public participation. In fact, whenever you go to court and you sit there, not just as an officer of the court, but even as people sitting in a court to follow the proceedings, it is an element of 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."
}