NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 14 — A new study has showed significant support for the abolishment of the death penalty, a penal code provision in conflict with the Constitution (2010), with 90 per cent of those interviewed rooting for its expungement from Kenya’s statutes.
The death penalty is provided for under Section 204 of the Penal Code but the provision is in conflict with Article 26 of the Constitution (2010) which provides for the Right to Life.
The revelation comes at a time when at least 600 people remain on death row in Kenya even though the last time death penalty was enforced was in 1987 when Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo Okumu, leaders of the 1982 coup d’état attempt, were hanged for treason.
The two-part study commissioned by The Death Penalty Project, London, released on Tuesday in collaboration with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, has shown that the Kenyans are open to the abolition of the penalty, and that the country’s opinion leaders are largely in favor of such change.
The study, led by Prof. Carolyn Hoyle at the University of Oxford, sought to better understand attitudes and openness to the abolition of capital punishment in Kenya.
The first part of the study, carried out in 2021, sought to investigate the commonly held assumption that the Kenyan public strongly supports the death penalty while the second part focused on the views of the country’s opinion formers, those considered influential in shaping public views.
According to the study, 51 per cent of 1,672 people questioned, initially supported the retention of the death penalty but only 32 per cent were strongly in favor.
“In countries that retain the death penalty, governments often cite public support as a key argument against abolition, yet in relation to Kenya, the findings of this research do not support that claim. They show that not only do those in positions of influence resolutely support abolition but that the public holds nuanced and flexible views that in no way impede abolition,” Hoyle, author of the reports and Director of the Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, said.
According to the findings, when the public is given more information about the application of the death penalty, such as realistic case scenarios or mitigating circumstances surrounding the case, such as the offender’s age, background, and mental health, public support for the punishment drops dramatically.
According to Hoyle, support for the penalty fell by 20 per cent to 31 per cent when people were informed that 17 other Sub-Saharan African countries have abolished the death penalty.
She further noted that 93 per cent of those interviewed thought Kenya should be influenced by the high rate of abolition around the world and follow suit to remove death penalty.
Parvais Jabbar, Co-Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project, said that the death penalty exists in countries like Kenya but their appears to be some resistance in the efforts to abolish it.
He added that a time had come for the Kenyan government and policy makers to get rid of capital punishment noting that that there has been no single execution in the country for nearly 35 years.
“We are starting to see a shift away from the death penalty across Africa, most recently in Sierra Leone, with new plans to abolish announced in Zambia and the Central African Republic,” he said.
“It is possible that Zimbabwe and Ghana too will make similar announcements by the end of the year. We hope that we will also see Kenya take steps to remove capital punishment soon, and that our research can support policymakers as they consider this important issue.”
The study further revealed that most of those interviewed were very well informed on the administration of the death penalty in Kenya, but the general public’s knowledge of the death penalty was more limited.
The findings revealed concerns among both the public and opinion shapers around the possibility that innocent people could be sentenced to death in Kenya.
According to the study, 61 per cent of the public thought that ‘many’ or ‘some’ innocent people have been sentenced to death in Kenya and these concerns reduced support for retention among the public to 28 per cent, while 88 per cent of the those who participated in the poll believe wrongful convictions occur fairly regularly.
The research also explored whether people would accept a government policy of abolition despite their initial position.
Fifty-nine per cent of those interviewed, who were initially in favour of retention, said that they would accept a policy of abolition.
More than three quarters believed that the public would accept abolition of the death penalty, notwithstanding initial reservations, and nearly all would support an Act of Parliament to abolish the death penalty
Kenya is among the minority of countries that continue to retain the death penalty in law.
In 2017, the country’s Supreme Court declared the mandatory death penalty unconstitutional and since the introduction of discretionary sentencing, the number of death sentences imposed has reduced.
Lady Justice Grace Nzioka of the High Court’s Criminal Division, who also spoke during the release of the report’s findings, stated that for the abolition of the death penalty in Kenya, there is need to have statutory law amendments.
About The Author
