One of the key reforms introduced in 2010 with the adoption of the new Constitution was the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
One year later, as work on new laws to give life to the Supreme Law continued, the Government drafted the Prevention of Torture Bill, which aims to implement legal obligations under the United Nations Convention ratified in 1997.
The Bill gives teeth to current policy desires in the judicial, security and penal systems for a regime of law and order that does not slip into brutal violence in the pursuit of its goals. Passing it into law and getting all relevant public officers to enforce it should be a priority.
As was made clear during the examination of Kenya’s second report under the UN Convention in Geneva, Switzerland, this week, we are still a way off from both international best practice and our self-prescribed targets.
We appreciate there may be apprehension within the uniformed services about the acts constituting torture. The Bill’s list of prohibited acts includes gun shots, systematic beating, punching, kicking, food deprivation, electric shocks, stress positions, rape, mutilation, exposure to extreme elements, use of drugs and so on. Other abuses barred as ‘mental torture’ include death threats, blindfolding, solitary confinement, prolonged interrogation, sleep deprivation, simulated executions and shame infliction.
While it would seem such prohibitions make robust interrogation impossible, experience the world over shows such restraints, applied within reason, improve law and order.
