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{
    "id": 980345,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/980345/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 263,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13219,
        "legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
        "slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
    },
    "content": "Court. In 2017, the election of H.E. President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta was nullified. The comment from that judgment was that the IEBC Commissioners who were tasked with running that election did not conduct a credible election. We spent a lot of money and resources in trying to solve this dispute in the Supreme Court. If I am not wrong, I think the only time the United States of America had a petition in the Supreme Court was in 2002. In all other instances, the moment you have elections, Americans are able to accept that the person who has been elected represents the wishes of the people. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we crave for a time when we will conduct our elections and the person who will be declared president will reflect the wish and the will of Kenyans. That way, we will bring to an end this idea of every time we have an election, we have to go to the Supreme Court to settle and electoral dispute. That is not how it should be. In 2007, this country was almost being subjected into a civil war because there was a perception that the people who run the electoral body at that time did not give the people of Kenya an opportunity to elect their leaders. Therefore, the elections were not free and fair. I hope that once we fix the problem in IEBC, we will bring to an end this idea that every time we get an opportunity to do constitutional reforms, we make demands that the commissioners in IEBC must resign or be replaced. At times it is very costly when you bring the term of these commissioners to an end prematurely, we pay a price because Kenyans are forced to compensate them. If they leave before their tenure in office has run a full course, then Kenyans have to compensate them for the remainder of their term. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I hope that the people who will get the honour once this Bill is enacted to serve in this panel will be men and women of integrity. The only precaution I have is that at times some of the bodies we are giving this task can themselves abuse the discretion that is given to them. For example, when I served as the President of LSK, we had a big debate on how LSK would pick their representatives to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). We could not agree. Sometimes you could have a Chairperson who chooses to pick his or her friend. We can have a Chairperson who is influenced by the state or an opposition party to pick someone who will lean in favour of either the Executive or the opposition. We settled on one position. We said that the people to represent the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) should be elected by the members of the LSK. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we need to ponder, as the Senate, whether we can entrust the task of picking a person to represent the LSK or the sitting president of the LSK should be the one to automatically represent the LSK."
}