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"id": 980567,
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"content": "of public participation is one that we, as a House of Parliament, have to deal with, with a lot of caution. I am saying this because I have seen several proposals, including the one from Hon. Chris Wamalwa, wanting to legislate on public participation. I would want to encourage Members to find out, and you can Google, the practice in other developed democracies on how they conduct public participation. You will find that, almost invariably, the practice is, first of all, when a Bill is published, it is deemed to be out there for everybody, every Tom, Dick and Harry, to read and make presentations. In fact, even apply to be allowed to come and make presentations to Parliament or a Committee of Parliament. I am saying this because we will fail if we tie ourselves to how much is enough public participation. I have seen this from some other quarters, I do not want to say where it is. Those of you in the legal profession are aware it is a subject of litigation. How much public participation is enough? Is it two days, three days, 50 days or one year? These are matters that ought to be left to, as you say, each case to be determined on its own peculiar merits and circumstances. Earlier on, we were just talking about the limitations that have been imposed on Parliament when it comes to the Public Appointments (Parliamentary Approval) Act. Look at the limitations that have been placed even on the House on consideration of the budget processes. It becomes so difficult. If you recall earlier on, feeling frustrated, the Member for Seme, the indomitable Dr. Nyikal was even proposing that we could suspend plenary sessions. I think we should be very careful how we deal with this issue of public participation. How much public participation is enough? I think, listening to you - and I am happy Hon. Wangwe has informed the House, not Hon. Otiende but actually the House – there were representations from various groups. I think that is the route any progressive society should encourage, including inviting leading professors in agricultural matters to make presentations before committees. I have encouraged chairs of committees that whenever you are considering any Bills on any subject matter, you locate expertise in a particular institution or persons. I think it is important that we begin encouraging that way of doing things. Obviously, a Bill that touches on the practice of law, I am sure you will find it almost imperative that you have to invite the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), members of the Judiciary from the bench, teachers of law in leading universities, et cetera. On matters to do with medicine, I am sure you will get something similar. The committees of the House should go out of their way to really think of those as very serious ways of public participation so that we can even avoid this thing of saying you want to go to some constituency. What are we saying if you go to one constituency and you do not go to the others? As the national Parliament, we should leave those things of going to constituencies to county assemblies and those others who deal with county matters – those who are elected to represent counties and serve to protect interests of the county governments. That is Article 96, of course. So, for us, as the national Parliament, I think we should encourage a situation in which what we do, Bills published here which are referred toc, we publicise them as much as possible and try to invite even targeted interest groups, professions and whatever other such-like bodies. We should be thinking about those things more particularly, but not so much in terms of enacting statutes. These are matters we should provide for within our own regulations which we are at liberty, from time to time, depending on the exigencies that may be there, alter by way of a resolution. We should allow ourselves that kind of flexibility so that we do not always have to keep calling for amendment of this or the other and such-like things. These are matters which, as a House, we should look into. 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."
}