Prof. Margaret Kamar

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 1731 to 1740 of 3022.

• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this historic Motion. I would like to support it with amendments and I will be mentioning which ones. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, allow me, first, to congratulate those who have participated in the process of Constitution-making in this country. I want to recognize the veterans – the Orengos and Imanyaras – past and present. I also want to remember to recognize the Bomas group of delegates that gave us the first Draft (2004). I also want to remember the Committee of Experts (CoE) and our own ... view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, to make this Constitution all inclusive and non exclusive, it is the duty of this House to take this phase of the Constitution-making very seriously. We must walk through all the Articles and Clauses carefully and diligently. If we must amend, we have to do our duty. We must amend those clauses that require amendment. If we avoid to do so, at this stage when all the other phases from Bomas have done their part, it will be failure on our part. Maybe this is not the stage where the leadership of the nation are used ... view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the current Constitution has served us for more than 40 years. It is my hope that the proposed Constitution will never be amended by anybody who will be alive by the time we enact it. So, it must serve us for a period of not less than 100 years. view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have been listening very carefully since the beginning of the debate. I had some Members indicate some fears. They were discouraging the idea of changing anything, including comas. I asked myself: “If Members of Parliament, the leadership of the nation fear to change even a comma in this document, who will do it?” We must rise to the occasion and make sure that we do what is right. There is nothing called pandora’s box in leadership. The sooner we open the cans of worms, the better, so that we can clear up because nobody else ... view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Naivasha retreat was attended by a handful of us. We had hoped to have a session where the Members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution would have spoken to us. That did not materialise. Our meeting at the Kenya Institute of Administration (KIA) failed to scrutinise this document. Therefore, we need to scrutinise this document properly. Avoidance is not a solution. If we avoid doing what we must do, I am afraid the Tenth Parliament should never pretend to have delivered the Constitution. Instead we must give credit where it belongs and give ... view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is worth noting that this draft has continued also to change progressively. That is from the Bomas Draft of 2004 to the Harmonised Draft published in 2009, Revised Harmonised Draft that followed, of course, the current Proposed Draft before this House. So, we have every reason to agree to look at the document. If there is anything that those of us who were not in Naivasha feel was mutilated or feel must be borrowed from the current Constitution, we should be able to address it, so that we give Kenyans a Constitution that will serve ... view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are also real issues that we need to look at. That is why I support that the document must be opened. I will highlight a few examples. There is the Supremacy of the Constitution Article 2, Clause 5. It says: view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: “The general rules of international law shall form part of the law of Kenya.” view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: That is very scaring because we have given a blanket cheque to international law reformers. We want to open our country to any law that comes from the international community. We need to open up this document, so that we deal with issues like that. We must ratify any international law in this House. Any glaring error like that must be dealt with. view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Clause 11(2)(c) has done promotion of intellectual property rights very well. But when you go down to the legislation by this House, this document denies the House the opportunity to legislate on indigenous knowledge. The whole essence of the intellectual property rights lies in the protection of the knowledge. Our indigenous people have a lot of knowledge that must be protected. Today, we enjoy Chinese tea and herbs. However, we do not want to legislate and protect our tea and herbs. There are a lot of trees with medicinal value that require protection. But beyond that, we must also protect ... view