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{
    "id": 970034,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/970034/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 17,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ng’ang’a Mbugua",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, as you exercise your discretion, Standing Order 1 requires you to bear in mind the provisions of the Constitution, the law and the forms and precedent of this Senate. I wish to remind this Senate that during the proposed impeachment of Governor Wambora and the late Governor Gachagua, there was a request of this same nature, where documents were admitted into evidence on the Floor of the Senate on the date when the impeachment proceedings commenced. Therefore, there is a custom and a precedent. We are not saying that we did that because there is a custom and a precedent, but this is a House of precedent and customs and it, therefore, behoves it to bear in mind that a precedent has been set before where an application of this nature was considered and granted. We accordingly urge you, very respectfully, to grant this application. We urge you to allow admission into evidence the Governor’s response dated 27th January, 2020, and the list of authorities which we have attached thereto and two witness statements of persons that were present on 19th December, 2019, when the impeachment proceedings took place on the Floor of the Assembly. I wish to mention that we had a chance to pass on to the Office of the Clerk a copy of those documents yesterday. We wanted the Senate to administratively have a chance to look at the nature of the evidence that we seek to adduce through those documents. However, we invite your determination on this question and a ruling on it, and we urge you to find our application merited and that you grant it. Ancillary to this, as you make a determination on those two applications at this preliminary stage, is an application that arose yesterday during the hearing of the Assembly’s case. It relates to objection to documents which were filed by the Assembly in contravention of Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure of this Senate’s Standing Orders. Rule 19 speaks to introduction of new evidence that was not part of the allegation against the Governor at the Assembly. That Rule correctly understood, presupposes that the allegations and the evidence originally presented before the Assembly prior to the passing of the resolution to impeach, and which the Governor was expected to defend himself against at the Assembly, must be the same evidence that the Assembly should rely on during the impeachment trial at the Senate. Introduction of new evidence at the impeachment trial stage at the Senate essentially means that the Governor has been deprived of a chance to defend himself against that evidence since the first defence stage is at the Assembly level. This is in keeping with Standing Order No. 63 of Kiambu County Assembly Standing Orders. It is on the right to be heard and it says that the person being removed, and in this case the Governor whose impeachment is sought, shall be availed with the report of the select Committee at the Assembly, together with any other evidence adduced and such note or papers presented to the Committee at least three days before the debate on the Motion. That is the Standing Order. What it presupposes is that the evidence at inception when the Motion was tabled must consistently be the same evidence that the Governor is expected to defend himself against at the Assembly level, and when the matter is escalated to the Senate, it must be the same evidence."
}