Kenya: MP proposes Bill to abolish death penalty

gbooza.com
The death penalty could be abolished if a Bill proposed by an MP becomes law.

An MP has drafted a Bill whose enactment would result in the repeal of the death sentence from Kenya's laws and stop the accumulation of death-row prisoners.

This would be by removing death as a kind of punishment from the Penal Code via the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill and the Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) Bill.

The Bill is by Oljororok MP John Waiganjo and is at the stage where the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee is supposed to scrutinise it prior to publication and formal introduction in the House.

Mr Waiganjo argues that having the death sentence in the law, contrary to the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, is not proper.

"Article 26 of the Constitution guarantees the right to life for all citizens and provides that this right may only be qualified by the Constitution or an Act of Parliament," said the MP in the Bill.

"The punishment is immoral, ineffective as a deterrent and has failed to adequately restore victims of crimes for which it is prescribed," he added.

Kenya has not executed a single death row convict since the hanging of Hezekiah Ochuka, the junior officer in the Kenya Air Force who headed the coup attempt in August 1982.

The number of death row convicts has however continued to accumulate since the provision is still in the statutes.

You can be subjected to the death sentence for robbery with violence or murder.

Robbery with violence can be as simple as using a knife to threaten someone before robbing them to shooting and injuring them before taking away their possessions.