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{
    "id": 972177,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/972177/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 593,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nambale, ANC",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Sakwa Bunyasi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2511,
        "legal_name": "John Sakwa Bunyasi",
        "slug": "john-sakwa-bunyasi"
    },
    "content": "This same Republic that oppresses its weak and where the Executive who are employees of the people, wants to exercise excessive executive power yet they are supported by the taxpayer. This is completely unconscionable. In this respect, as much as we look at those other areas that oppress the Judiciary, at the end of the day, it is Parliament that has the ability to amend the laws and has the ability to bite if it so chooses. We see threats to the Judiciary which have been many and furious coming at high speed but we do not do anything. We begin to look at political affiliations and whether to support or condemn, with none of it based on principle that says we cannot accept those kinds of utterances. If in fact, in the appointment of judges has gone beyond reasonable time, and we are not convinced there is a good reason for it, but suddenly the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission says that many of the nominees have cases… We should remember that we have been appointing people to high level positions including the Cabinet and Principal Secretaries yet we cannot get anything other than a vague statement that the person has not shown up in their investigation or something like that. We do not know if they have investigated, whether the person has not shown up or whether they forgot. We do not know. Now suddenly we get a frustration of an appointment of judicial officers on grounds of that kind. That is at the macro level or the level of the entire institution, and how badly it is going. Here we are crowing around like cocks about how well we are doing in issues of doing business in Kenya. If you cannot obey contracts, if cases take years or decades, how can we be doing so well on that index? It must be quite a partial index used by institutions that are eager globally to show that they are doing good particularly in developing countries. We should not praise ourselves. We should look critically at what is happening internally. We are the only people who understand it. We are the only people who live here. We know it is not going well. It is being magnified by budgetary cuts and reluctance to provide budgetary support. We can also look at the role of the Judiciary in ensuring fairness to the poor and the weak. We are 47 million people. Probably we have 45,000 well-to-do people and the rest of the millions are people who are struggling and cannot get justice. Murders occur and nobody cares. There will be some high profile something and then it just goes dead, you do not hear about it. You hear of graft and the Friday phenomenon is simply drama. In fact, this should belong to some of these western-type movies that simply do entertainment. Actually, when real work is supposed to be done, nothing happens. You think they are doing investigations. We now hear that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) and Directorate of Criminal Investigations have begun to undermine each other. Nothing will move. All elites and the wealthy are trying to oppress the poor and we are looking at it. We hear them saying Constitution that, Constitution this. We are guardians of that. We can induce the change and sensitise process but we are not doing that. It is within our means to make these things happen, be it realisation of financial independence or protection in terms of the law. Protection of these officers is within our means. We are not doing very much there. It is very sad that on this day and age, we still have judicial officers taking notes furiously as they listen to cases when technology is in abundance. I know it judicial tradition to take notes in that manner; maybe they enjoy it. We can, for example, say we are going to increase funding for development but not for recurrent expenditure. There are certain institutions where recurrent funding is what you really need, including the capital expenditure within recurrent funding. That way, judicial officers will be able to just sit and listen. Judicial officers in the developed world sit The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}