Title: Death penalty in Kenya and the global trend towards its abolition

Authors: Josephat Muuo Kilonzo

Addresses: School of Law, Moi University, Kenya

Abstract: The debate on death penalty has since time immemorial attracted public interest. Pragmatic arguments for and against death penalty have been advanced and the longstanding and heated debate seems to hardly come to an end. Central to the critical and unending debate are religious, philosophical, legal and ethical values that inform it. The debate has also been anchored on whether a country for which human dignity is a supreme value, can without fundamental discrepancy, successfully carry out the practice of deliberately executing its people. This paper reviews the constitutional and human rights issues that surround the question of death penalty in Kenya in particular, in the light of approaches adopted in different jurisdictions. The paper, however, does not ignore moral, political and cultural perspectives on death penalty.

Keywords: death penalty; capital punishment; Kenya; human dignity; right to life; inhuman; degrading; death penalty abolition; constitutional rights; human rights; morality; culture; politics; moral perspectives; political perspectives; cultural perspectives.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRCS.2015.070604

International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2015 Vol.3 No.2, pp.137 - 156

Received: 26 Feb 2015
Accepted: 27 Feb 2015

Published online: 13 Jul 2015 *

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