The Judicial Service Commission is concluding interviews for the next Chief Justice and president of the Supreme Court.
Justice Marete Njagi, 61, is on of the candidates, who have been interviewed for the job.
He has 35 years of experience in law and served at the state law office as well as a senior legal officer at the Teachers Service Commission.
What caught the attention of Kenyans is his submission of his disability card, which indicated he is visually and mentally disabled. From the questioning by Justice Ibrahim Warsame, it was abundantly clear that the question as to whether he has a mental disability rang supreme in the minds of the panelists.
On one hand, Marete admitted to having serious visual challenges but on the other, he denied having a mental disability stating that it was a printing error that he hadn’t taken time to correct. He attributed the wrong assessment to the fact that he has hypokalemia, which causes low blood sugar.
I remember very well how in 2006, we came up with a registration policy at the National Council for Persons With Disabilities and how we piloted the first registration exercise in Kajiado and Githunguri constituencies. This was in fulfilment of the provisions of Section 7 of the Persons with Disabilities Act no 14 of 2003 that required the NCPWD to register all PWDs in the country.
There are benefits that result from the registration such as tax exemption from income up to Sh150,000. Others include an extra five years in employment to cover up for years lost before one was employed or when they acquired a disability, and five per cent employment quota etc.
While visual impairment seems largely acceptable, it appears that declaring one’s mental health condition is largely stigmatised and many people find it very difficult for them to declare this status. This is because of the traditional view of mental ‘retardation’.
Majority of members of the society shudder to imagine that individuals with mental disabilities can actually execute tasks such as self-care leave alone applying for an important job such as that of the CJ.
The fact that Justice Warsame questioned the disability status of Justice Marete in itself served to delegitimise that very declaration and further stigmatised the condition, especially when Justice Marete had to deny if at all.
It’s important to note that there exists what we call ‘traditional’ mental disabilities that severely affect cognitive abilities on one hand, and other mental health conditions that if well managed, many people are able to execute their functions very well.
These conditions include ADHD, bipolar, PTSD etc. It would surprise many Kenyans to note that there are several MPs, senators, governors, presidents and even innovators with these conditions and they haven’t failed to live a fairly normal life. The fact that they are invisible means that many people assume that the visible disabilities are the most important and therefore should be prioritised.
On the contrary, the society hasn’t invested a lot in understanding mental health conditions and it’s also true that due to the stigma associated with the labeling of one as disabled, many people find it very hard to declare their mental health or disability status.
I remember getting into a Manyatta in a village in Kajiado and finding a 90-year-old man, a World War II veteran, who was injured during combat and became disabled. He was married to a young woman possibly in her early 20s, if not a teenager, and had a deaf daughter. Upon asking the wife if the husband and the daughter were disabled, she said no. They only had ‘shida kidogo’ (small challenges), she said.
The individual relational model of disability whereby comparison to other types of impairments, coupled with the resultant discrimination remains a big challenge to the society.
I remember trying to amend sections 11 and 12 of the Marriage Act 2012 that outlawed persons with mental health conditions from giving consent to marriage, thus denying them their right to exercise legal capacity as per Article 12 of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. Aden Duale, then leader of Majority convinced the House not to allow ‘mad’ people to get married.
We still have a long way to go as a country in accepting, and positively identifying with mental health conditions aptly known as psychosocial disabilities. We haven’t made much progress as we tend to imagine towards the inclusion of PWDs in the mainstream of society. While disability inclusion has led to five per cent reservation of employment in a progressive manner as per Article 54 (2) of the Constitution, disability status is still used against many people in society to deny them equal opportunity.
Thus the contradiction in belonging to a marginalised group of people is that you have to claim marginalisation for you to get a seat at the table, while at the same time working hard to overcome barriers that hinder you from starting on an equal basis with others. This is despite the very marginalisation by being thrown at you when competition sets in.
(The writer is one of the three National Mental Health Champion under the World Health Organization Quality Rights Program)
