The campaign to have Kenya abolish the death penalty in its entirety has taken a more promising speed with Ugunja MP and Minority leader Opiyo Wandayi Presenting the Penal Code Amendment Bill in the National Assembly for deliberation.
The Bill intends to amend other related laws including the Prison Act, the Legal Aid, the Kenya Defense Forces Act, the Preservation of Public Security, and the Appellate Jurisdiction Act with regard to the death sentence.
Wandayi, who termed the Laws as outdated and agonizing stated that attempts to abolish the death penalty are important since Countries throughout the world, particularly in Africa, continue to shamelessly violate Human Rights including rights for people serving jail terms.
“The law provides that when a person is sentenced to death, ‘he shall be hanged by the neck until he is dead’. This not only demonstrates the torturous and archaic nature of the death penalty but also warrants its urgent and immediate abolition as a form of punishment in Kenya,” said the Legislator.
Wandayi said the nature of the amendment is to replace the death sentence with life imprisonment which according to him is more humane.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Francis Karioko Muruatetu in 2017 declared the mandatory nature of the death penalty as unconstitutional.
“I’m very hopeful that these amendments will indeed see the light of day as the lives of numerous prisoners serving the death sentence depend on it,” Wandayi noted.
Statistics from the Kenya Prisons Service confirm that 101 Kenyans are on death row to date. Ninety-nine are male while two are women.
Women on death row are said to suffer intersectional discrimination from the point of arrest, trial and sentencing.
