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{
    "id": 905795,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/905795/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 256,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir, for giving me the opportunity to support this Bill. Hearing contributions from various Members, I am sure we all appreciate that the state of mental health in this country needs attention. This Bill seeks to align the Constitution with the provisions of healthcare. In this country mental health has been stigmatized to the extent that even when you disagree in an argument with a friend, he will tell you: “you are a candidate for Mathari Hospital” meaning that you are a mental patient. Mathari Hospital has been so stigmatized that when one goes there, one starts thinking differently. I expected to hear Prof. Ongeri, who is a very distinguished academic and medical practitioner, talk about the graduated levels of mental illness. A simple depression is definitely different from a person who wakes up the morning dressed very well and all over sudden strips naked and start to walk around shouting obscenities and so on. We also have situations where a person who has to be regarded highly in society wakes up in the morning, takes an axe and cuts the head of his wife. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a case which I did when I was in active legal practice where a man went home in the evening and he had a good meal with friends a local market. The wife gave him food. He took the food and gave it to the family dog. The wife took an axe and cuts off his head. It became a terrible homicide. Those are extreme cases of mental difficulties that many people go through. Sen. Kasanga, towards the end of the Bill at Committee Stage, probably, you need some consultative process from people like Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri to advise on how to deal with these graduated levels of mental illness. A depression or something that makes ones sad temporarily for an hour or two, cannot be treated in the same way as a situation where a person wakes up and will away family property without caring because they do not know what you are doing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in law, we have the McNaughton Rule that classify and define the levels of criminal responsibility depending on a person’s mental state. Many people will get away with lesser responsibilities for crime given what their mental ailment would be. This is a recognition that certain levels of depression or mental situations will make a person suffer from what lawyers call diminish responsibility in the discharge of their activity. We should also disabuse ourselves of the notion that people who smoke cannabis"
}