A recent survey by civil society has found that a slight majority of Kenyans want courts to stop sentencing convicts to death.
About 51 per cent of the public initially supported the retention of the death penalty but only 32 per cent were strongly in favour.
However,59 per cent of the public, who were initially in favour of retention, said that they would accept a policy of abolition.
The survey, dubbed The Death Penalty Project, shows that the majority of opinion shapers in the country strongly favour removing the provision for the penalty from the country’s law books.
The majority of the interviewees have low trust in the country’s criminal justice system to offer adequate safeguards for suspects and defendants.
In fact, 57 per cent of them claimed that wrongful convictions happen often in the Kenyan courts and some 54 per cent claimed that suspects were rarely treated fairly by the police.
Only 34 per cent of them thought that prosecutors could usually or always be trusted to ensure suspects are treated fairly.
The opinion formers interviewed for the project included players in the social justice centres and civil society organisations.
Others were lawyers, senior government officials, journalists, elders, religious leaders, magistrates and prosecutors. A total of 42 respondents were interviewed.
About 90 per cent of those in support of abolishing the penalty argued that there is a high risk of sentencing a suspect that has been wrongfully convicted. Others argued it was an abuse of human rights.
Other reasons cited include the need to give criminals a chance to rehabilitate themselves and change their ways.
But those in support of the penalty argued that retaining it in the country’s law books without necessarily executing the death row convicts was useful in deterring violent criminals.
“Opinion formers thought that the government retained the death penalty despite not executing anyone for decades because it is necessary to deter crime," report reads.
Other supporters of the penalty cite the savagery of violent criminals who “need to be served with the same level of resolve in punishment.”
“Interviewees mentioned public concern over relatively high rates of violence….” report reads.
The last death row execution was carried out in the country some 35 years ago.
The victim was an airforce officer accused of plotting the 1982 attempted coup against the government of President Daniel Moi.
A total of 280 executions have been carried out in the post-independence era.
Under the penal code, such execution is reserved for convicts of murder, robbery with violence, attempted robbery with violence and treason.
However, courts have continued to hand out death sentences to convicts, with an estimated 600 people on death row at the moment.
The majority of the death row convicts get their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
Globally, Amnesty International says it recorded 579 executions in 18 countries in 2021, an increase of 20 per cent from the 483 recorded in 2020.
This figure represents the second-lowest number of executions recorded by Amnesty International since at least 2010, it said.
Most known executions took place in China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria – in that order, the lobby said.
(Edited by Tabnacha O)
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