Police must protect sanctity of life and stop enforced disappearances

From June 2024 to date, exponential cases of missing persons and enforced disappearances with many of them turning up dead have become extremely worrying and agonising for the families losing their loved ones mysteriously.

The Inspector-General of Police expressed concern about the rising murder cases reports, yet he and his team must safeguard and protect lives. The Constitution in Article 26 provides for the right to life for everyone declaring that no person shall be deprived of life intentionally. Article 239 establishes the Kenya Defence Forces (external security), the National Intelligence Service (article 242 intelligence and counter-intelligence) and the National Police Service, the latter with the responsibility to protect and secure everyone in Kenya.

Subsection 5 declares that the national security organs are subordinate to civilian authority, which affirms the sovereignty of the people provided for in Article 1(1) to ensure the Kenya Police and the other two organs are exercising the people’s delegated sovereign power to serve their interests and ensure the sanctity of life.

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The Inspector-General is appointed by the President with the approval of Parliament and is obligated to exercise independent command over the National Police Service.

So, when he says he is concerned with the rising cases of murder, which is criminal and whose deterrence is a mandatory function of his office, it begs the question, is the National Police Service overwhelmed or incapacitated to conclusively deal with enforced disappearance and murders? There is also an interesting spin into the recent disappearances.

Although there has been sustained tragic femicide, there are more cases targeting residents of Nairobi and environs, who are driven to other counties and left for the dead. Why? Young female students are also reportedly being drugged or abducted and turning up dead, why? There are also too many unresolved murders. What happened to the serial killers of the Kware murders? How do we end impunity and these killings? One of the key challenges we have is an insufficient legal and institutional framework. For example, we do not have a law that criminalises enforced disappearances in Kenya, which people can use in courts to end impunity.

Civil society human rights groups, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority and the Kenya National Human Rights Commission have been conducting exhaustive investigations of torture, forced disappearances and abductions and documenting their findings long before the Gen Zs protection in June 2024.

Their reports continue to recommend prompt, impartial and effective investigations to ensure the perpetrators are prosecuted and victims adequately compensated. The Shakaola massacre prosecutions are still ongoing although at the back burner, hopefully, people will be found culpable and properly punished for these killings to end impunity.

Parliament Standing Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs and Human Rights, led by SC Okong’o Mogeni, on 5th October 2021, released their report on the inquiry into extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in Kenya. A key finding was that, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances are issues touching on violation of human rights and are criminal in nature.

The committee recommended that the Attorney General initiates the process of ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances and the Parliament to amend the National Police Service Act, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority Act to grant IPOA the primary responsibility to investigate crimes alleged to have been committed by police officers.

The National Security Council was asked to develop a national security policy and other recommendations directed to the Cabinet Secretaries of Interior and Treasury to facilitate implementation and enforcement of the recommendations and to strengthen and facilitate legal and institutional frameworks envisaged in the report.

Many of these are still pending long after the expiry of the report’s timelines. The October 2021 recommendations should be urgently implemented to enable the National Police Service to end these catastrophic abductions, enforced disappearances and murders.