Written by Cyrus Kimanga 📝
The Committee against Torture concluded its consideration of Kenya’s third periodic review this afternoon, with Committee Experts commending Kenya’s efforts to implement the law on torture prevention and inquiring about prison overcrowding and the death penalty.
Sebastien Touze, Committee Expert and Country Rapporteur for Kenya, said Kenya’s efforts to implement the law on the prevention of torture should be commended.
The State party had made efforts to bring its legislation in line with the Convention. The definition of torture in the legislation, however, was more restrictive than in the Convention.
Mr. Touze said the Committee had asked the State party to provide information on measures taken to reduce prison overcrowding. What was the number of people detained in prisons?
Over 50 per cent of detainees in 2018 were in temporary detention, and prison overcrowding was at 195 per cent overall. In some centres, there was over 400 per cent overcrowding. Such overcrowding threatened the health of detainees.
Another Committee Expert said that the Supreme Court had found that the mandatory use of the death penalty in murder cases was unconstitutional in 2016.
This decision had attracted praise from many groups. What had been done to implement the decision? How many people were covered by the decision? How many people still needed to have their cases reviewed, and what kind of review would these people receive?
There was a long-standing practice where death penalties were not carried out, but the sentence was still imposed. Had progress been made toward the abolition of the death penalty?
Cleopa Kilonzu Mailu, Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations Office at Geneva and head of the delegation, said Kenya still faced the challenge of overcrowding in prisons.
However, the Bail and Bond Policy Guidelines had been developed to streamline and address disparities in bail and bond decision-making. In addition, the Diversion Policy developed in 2019 allowed for cases to be settled out of court, on merit and through agreed structures.
The Government was also deploying the use of community service orders for those sentenced to three years and below and those with a balance of three years and below left to serve.
These efforts had seen the prison population decline by 60.7 per cent. The judiciary also reviewed cases for individuals sentenced to six months and below for release.
The mandatory death sentence had been declared unlawful for murder, but had not been eliminated, the delegation said. Data had been collected from prisons from all persons on death row who had not been executed by August 2018.
The Superior Courts were undertaking the resentencing of convicted persons who had been sentenced to death previously. In a number of cases, for those who had served over 30 years, some had been released. The death sentence remained a legal sentence, but its abolition would be determined by the people of Kenya, most feasibly through a plebiscite.
Presenting the report, Mr. Mailu said Kenya shared the conviction that torture could never be justifiable and under the Kenyan Constitution, the right not to be tortured could not be limited under any circumstances.
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