The Power of Mercy Advisory Committee said the number of petitions from convicts facing the hangman’s noose dropped from 206 in 2019/20 to 62 last year, a 30 percent slump.
The committee chaired by Attorney General Kihara Kariuki said a number of death row convicts are now trapped in jail after they opted to apply for resentencing instead of presidential clemency.
Prior to the Supreme Court judgment, any person convicted of murder or robbery with violence would automatically receive the death penalty.
The number of prisoners seeking presidential pardon has dropped by a third following a Supreme Court ruling that declared mandatory death penalty unconstitutional.
The Power of Mercy Advisory Committee said the number of petitions from convicts facing the hangman’s noose dropped from 206 in 2019/20 to 62 last year, a 30 percent slump.
The committee chaired by Attorney General Kihara Kariuki said a number of death row convicts are now trapped in jail after they opted to apply for resentencing instead of presidential clemency following the apex court ruling.
“The drop in petitions was occasioned by the significant number of long-serving convicts, who are by design the target of the Power of Mercy, that chose the court as the redress route, thereby locking themselves out of the petition process,” Mr Kariuki said in a report to Parliament.
The Supreme Court in 2017 ruled that the mandatory death penalty violates fundamental human rights and declared it unconstitutional.
The apex court delivered a judgment on December 14, 2017, following a petition by death row convicts Francis Karioko Muruatetu and Wilson Thirimbu Mwangi who had been jailed since 2003.
In the judgment, the court held that the mandatory death penalty is “out of sync with the progressive Bill of Rights” in the Constitution and an affront to the rule of law.
The judgment on the mandatory death penalty was delivered after almost 120 years of the same being on the country’s laws.
Prior to the Supreme Court judgment, any person convicted of murder or robbery with violence would automatically receive the death penalty.
The historic judgment affected thousands of prisoners, including those sentenced to death. The Power of Mercy Advisory Committee said the decrease in a number of petitions was further compounded by a large number of prisoners who have appealed their death penalties.
“The decrease in the petitions was further compounded by a large number of prisoners, especially those on death row, who opted for resentencing in line with the ruling on the Karioko Muruatetu murder case, Francis Karioko Muruatetu & Another versus the Republic, where the Supreme Court held that the mandatory nature of death sentence as provided under Section 204 of the Penal Code was declared unconstitutional,” the report said.
Official data shows that the number of convicts on death sentence fell from 2,757 in 2014 to 120 in 2020.
The Economic Survey 2021 shows that the total persons committed to prison dropped from 209,295 in 2019 to 86,119 in the year 2020.
The Power of Mercy Advisory Committee is established pursuant to Article 133 of the Constitution to advise the President on the exercise of Power of Mercy.
The Constitution allows the President, on the petition, to grant free or conditional pardon to a person convicted of an offence postpone the carrying out of a punishment, either for a specified or indefinite period, substitute a less severe form of punishment, or remit all or part of a punishment.
This comes at a time justice systems are moving away from capital punishment in favour of life sentences.
Kenya has not carried out executions since 1987 when Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo Okumu were hanged for treason. Successive Presidents have instead occasionally commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment.
