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{
    "id": 590005,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/590005/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 299,
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    "content": "sociological. The prison conditions that we hold our prisoners in subject them to enormous mental anguish. There are no facilities provided that can allow somebody to transform and come out of prison a transformed individual. They should not be subjected to corporal punishment or treated in an inhuman or degrading manner. Therefore, the kind of treatment we sometimes subject our prisoners to will easily fall under the purview of cruel inhuman or degrading manner. In this country when you speak about prisoners and their rights, the country is in shock. This country must start to realise that if we chose this Constitution ourselves, then we must then respect every section of it. Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr, the Speaker, Sen. Elachi and I were in a forum this morning and in that forum we heard Kenyans express their dissatisfaction with the enormous number of public officials that we have; the Cabinet, Members of the National Assembly, Members of the Senate and counties. They said that the number of constituencies should be reduced. I remember the rebuttal from the Senators that we gave these positions unto ourselves through this Constitution and even put a gag constitutionally, that we cannot review some of these constituency boundaries at least for a period of ten years. So, when you voted for it you knew that there were consequences. When we voted or aspired to have this Constitution then there are consequences in terms of ensuring that we live by the tenets and the philosophies provided in this Constitution. Therefore, I find this Motion extremely timely. I think we as the Senate, must start to internalize, in terms of ensuring that our Constitution is adhered to in letter and spirit. We should respect persons that we want to transform. I can tell you without contradiction that when I served in the KNCHR we found a lot of difficulties in reintegration of many of the prisoners. Some were put there for very petty offences for two months, six months or eight months. When they come back to the society to reintegrate, first and foremost, they are stigmatized. After the stigmatization, follows the process that they are unable to reintegrate with the society because they feel that there is a certain snub by the society on the basis that they have been alleged to have committed certain crimes. Therefore, this is a transformative Motion that intends to transform a sector of our criminal justice system that is one of our important components. We are talking about police and judicial reforms. To complete that chain of the criminal justice system, then we must talk about prison or penal reforms. This is a very timely Motion. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have looked at the Membership of the Committee that you have proposed.These areSenators who add great value to the Senate. I have reverence for Sen. (Dr.) Kittony and Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale. There is also Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo who taught me in school and I am sure he can teach us how to reform this. You forgot to tell us that Sen. Madzayo is a retired judge and so he has fully internalized issues around prison reforms. Sen. Chelule, Sen. Sijeny, Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr., Sen. Sang who are all lawyers; Sen. Gwendo and Sen. M. Kajwang. I also commend the membership that you have carefully selected. I believe this is a membership that can internalize the mandate that we set them to achieve – to review fundamentally the policy and the legislative The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}