In a landmark judgment, the Court of Appeal of Kenya on Friday in Nairobi declared unconstitutional the application of a mandatory death sentence on all prisoners convicted of murder.
In their unanimous judgment, the Court of Appeal in a historical judgment ruled that the automatic nature of the death penalty in Kenya for murder violates the right to life and amounts to inhuman punishment, as it does not provide the individuals concerned with an opportunity to mitigate their death sentences.
As a result, hundreds of prisoners currently on death row in Kenya will have to be re-sentenced in accordance with the new law.
The Court of Appeal said that the same reasoning given in the judgment would apply to other offences having death sentence, such as treason and robbery with violence.
A new set of procedures will now have to be adopted to ensure that sentence hearings takes place and a judge will now have discretion to consider what sentence to impose after hearing evidence in mitigation.
The death penalty is now to be the maximum sentence, but not the only sentence.
The Court of Appeal came out strongly against the death row phenomenon, stating that holding a person on death row for more than 3 years would be unconstitutional.

Joseph Kimani