Justice Nixon Sifuna ruled that life sentences are equal to death sentences since they permanently remove a convict from society, and that condemning the person to serve an indefinite jail term goes against the right to human dignity.
“Life sentence is not only archaic in the present civilization, but also unreasonable and absurd. It is an undignifying sentence that violates the right to human dignity as guaranteed under Article 28 of the Kenya Constitution,” he ruled.
According to Justice Sifuna, a “life sentence” makes it unclear when one should leave jail given that it is impossible to complete a life sentence unless death interrupts it.
He equated a life sentence to a death sentence which had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, stating that they are similar in terms of their severity and permanent punishment.
“The common denominator in death and life sentences is that, once sentenced, the convict is permanently deleted from society and will never return except through perhaps a stealthy escape or daring dash in a prison break which action is criminalised and is a punishable offence,” ruled Sifuna.
The judge made the decision in an appeal filed by a man identified as JNN who was charged with incest. JNN was accused of defiling his ten-year-old daughter. The trial magistrate found him guilty of the offence and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
He challenged both the conviction and sentence, arguing that the trial magistrate failed to consider all the evidence before handing him the life sentence.
Although Justice Sifuna upheld the conviction, ruling that the trial court properly evaluated the evidence before finding the man guilty of incest, he declared that the magistrate made a mistake by sentencing him to life imprisonment and reduced the jail term to ten years.
“Having found that the trial court properly convicted the appellant, his appeal on conviction fails, and I uphold the said conviction accordingly. As to the life sentence that the appellant is currently serving, I set it aside and substitute it with a sentence of ten years imprisonment,” the judge ruled.
Justice Sifuna described life sentence as an indefinite, indeterminable, mathematically incalculable and unquantifiable punishment that denies the prisoner any hope of eventual release.
He stated that it is a deceptive sentence where a prisoner commences thinking that he will one day complete it and be released from prison but later realises that it is a prison term he can never and will never complete or fully serve no matter how hard he serves or keeps counting days.
His decision followed another by Court of Appeal judges Pauline Nyamweya, Jessie Lesiit and George Odunga which declared life sentences unconstitutional on the basis that it was unfair to outlaw mandatory death sentences only for a person to be locked in prison till death.
According to the appellate judges, the purpose of jailing a person is to deter, rehabilitate, denounce or offer retribution for the offence committed which does not mean the natural life of the offender.
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