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"id": 500497,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Aden",
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"speaker": {
"id": 15,
"legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
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"content": "arrested in very normal condition, and hours later they are found with broken limbs and deformed faces in a cell. These things clearly portray how a person was treated. Under Clause 5 of this Bill, there is something here that talks about the rights to human treatment; the law here is very clear that a person must be treated humanely, taken good care of, must not be mistreated and there is a penalty that has been given here. It says:- “Any person who subjects a person deprived of liberty to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment commits an offence and shall be liable upon conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.” I have my own misgivings about this particular bit and I think I will move an amendment to this Clause. If you remember, when we were passing the Bill that touched on anti-poaching; namely Wildlife Conservation Management Bill, we provided that a person who mistreats, kills or does anything to an animal will be fined Kshs20 million or jailed for a period of 20 years. However, here we are talking of Kshs200,000 only for a person, probably a police officer, who has been found guilty of mistreating an arrested person. I want to suggest that the fine should not be Kshs200,000 but a minimum of Kshs1 million. I will move an amendment at the appropriate time; the term of imprisonment should not, in my view, be two years but five years or more. Persons who are arrested are also given the right to have legal aid. Unfortunately, legal aid is not very common in Kenya, but in the rest of the world when a person is arrested they are provided with lawyers. In many cases in Kenya, people are not able to afford lawyers. This Bill says that the Government will be obliged to ensure that legal aid is given to those who are arrested. Then there is the issue of following due process of the law. That is, the person who is arrested should be given the right to communicate to their families and other persons whom the person may choose. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, in Clause 7 (h)(g), a person should not be compelled to give a confession. Unfortunately, sometimes you will find the relatives of an arrested person walking around or calling us Members of Parliament and saying their loved ones have been arrested, and they do not know where they are. Sometimes several days pass. We have seen Members of Parliament here presenting Statements requesting the Government to produce persons who have been arrested for many weeks, yet the relatives did not know about it. This law says that immediately a person is arrested, the person should be given the right to communicate to their relatives. The law is also very clear. Even if the fellow arrested does not have a mobile phone or a means to communicate to their people, Article 8 says that the officer, or person, in-charge of the facility that has arrested this particular person must provide means of communication for this person to communicate to their families. Clearly, this law will revolutionise the conditions that many of our people live in. Then there is the issue of body search. Unfortunately, when people are arrested on the streets, and even before they are taken to custody, the police often rough them up in a wrong manner; they search them almost inside out. This is also very clearly controlled in this Bill. I do not want to go into details of this, but I think I do agree with it very much. What it recommends is a humane manner of treating arrested persons. Also, refugees who are often arrested while entering our country, or travelling in our country, are also manhandled many times. Those of us who come from Garissa County, or border areas where these refugees are know this. At times refugees want to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}