•The last known execution was carried out 22 years ago in the case of Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo.
•MP says the death penalty does not deter crime and amounts to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Image: FAITH MATETE
Azimio's leadership in Parliament has written to the Speaker of the National Assembly Moses Wetangula expressing its intention to abolish the death penalty.
Minority leader Opiyo Wandayi wants the speaker to authorize a bill through which he seeks to make changes to the Penal Code that still provide for the punishment.
The death penalty was abolished with the promulgation of the Constitution 2010 leaving life imprisonment as the highest form of punishment for lawbreakers.
“The Penal Code (Amendment) Bill will in effect delete each section in which the words ‘sentenced to death’ appear while replacing the same with the words ‘life imprisonment’,” Wandayi said in the letter to Wetangula.
The Ugunja lawmaker added that the changes would harmonize the Penal Code with Article 26 (1) of the Constitution which provides for the right to life.
He added that the amendment would be in line with the Supreme Court decision in the case of Francis Karioko versus the Republic of Kenya which declared the death sentence unconstitutional.
“The purpose of this letter is to request your approval and assistance in the preparation of the amendment bill,” the letter reads in part, indicating the changes would see sections 40 (3), 60, 204, 296 (2), and 297 (2) of the Penal Code deleted.
Section 40 (3) says that “Any person who is guilty of the offence of treason shall be sentenced to death”.
Section 60 sets a death sentence for any person who administers an oath or engages in the nature of an oath purporting to bind the taker to commit an offence.
Section 204 sets the penalty for any person convicted of murder, with 296 and 297 being for armed robbery convicts and assault using any weapon respectively.
Wandayi argues that the death penalty should be outlawed for reasons it amounts to a violation of the right to life and may make killing normal for other people.
“To support the death penalty is to teach that violence and killing is an acceptable way of dealing with serious crimes,” he said.
The MP further argued that the death penalty does not deter crime and that it amounts to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
The last known execution was carried out 22 years ago in the case of Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo.
Wandayi says that despite the supreme law banning the punishment, the courts have continued to sentence people to death.
“This has created a de facto moratorium leading to adverse effects on the death row inmates including mental anguish and psychological torture,” he said.
“These inmates live each day waiting for the hangman, the cruellest and most torturous life. The death penalty not only deprives the prisoner of all vestiges of human dignity, but it’s also the desecration of the individual as a human being, it is the annihilation of the very essence of human dignity. It must, therefore, be abolished under Kenyan law as a matter of utmost urgency,” the lawmaker stated.