The House of Laws has come up with a new offence called “Defamation of Parliament” intended to cow the Press from exposing MPs and their (mis)conduct. The new phrase is the brainchild of Adan Keynan, the cantankerous MP for Eldas. The Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Bill, 2014 provides in part, “a person commits an offence if the person…speaks words defamatory of Parliament, its committees or its proceedings”.
Journalists are mad about this draft law. The Committee on the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) has also poured cold water on it.
Hardly, all. Those who interpret the laws are also scripting new phrases. In the recently concluded Evans Kidero vs Ferdinand Waititu case, Supreme Court Judge Njoki Ndung’u talked about “concurrent” ruling. But legal minds felt hers was a “dissent” from the rest. Or did she mean “concurrently dissent”? According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, ‘concurrent’ is defined as “acting in conjunction”, “meeting or intersecting in a point”. Her ruling appeared to be deviate from that by her colleagues’.
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