Jurists are calling for the total abolition of the death penalty in Kenya, highlighting its ineffectiveness as a deterrent to crime and its contradiction to human rights standards.
During the commemoration of the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Court of Appeal Judge Justice John Mativo noted the growing global trend toward its abolition.
He said that many countries no longer implement the death penalty, even if it remains on their law books.
“It is quite inhuman, degrading and irreversible. Most countries in the world have already abolished it and even the ones which have it in the law books people are sentenced to death, but they are not executed so you find there is a reluctance to execute them,” Mativo stated.
He pointed out that Kenya’s own Supreme Court had made a landmark decision in 2017 to outlaw the mandatory death sentence for murder, offering those convicted a chance for resentencing.
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However, Mativo noted that the decision does not apply to those convicted of robbery with violence.
“So, we have a category of offenders who are now being told we cannot help you, you have to go suffer death because the law stands as it is,” he said.
Mativo expressed hope that the law would be amended to eliminate the death penalty.
He also highlighted the reluctance of Kenyan presidents to sign death warrants, with those sentenced to death often ending up in prison for life instead.
“That is why we are saying then give them definite jail terms instead of sentencing them to a situation where they are waiting for death which is not forthcoming and, in any event, we have said death is cruel its inhuman.”
Despite Kenya’s moratorium on executions since 1987, advocates are pushing for the country to completely remove the death penalty from its laws.
Human rights groups and international partners also challenge the government to take decisive steps towards a more rehabilitative and humane justice system..
If successful, Kenya will join twenty-six other African states, including Cape Verde, Chad, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Ghana and Zambia, which abolished the death penalty in law.
