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{
    "id": 907643,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/907643/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 444,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "When I was growing up, there was a girl with a mental condition. Every time she visited a homestead, she would be chased away because nobody wanted to deal with her. I only realised much later when I got into activism and reflected about the girl, who was called Wairimu. She died prematurely out of negligence and disease. That is the story of many people that we ignore. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, according to our laws, you can be removed from office if you are perceived to be insane or of unsound mind. I would like to indulge you, as a professor of law. How insane is insane, and what constitutes unsound mind? At the international level, there is a serious debate around the convention on the rights of PWDs with regard to legal capacity. If you look at Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), issues of human rights should be unpacked with regards to legal capacity. To what extent can you say that a person has the right to exercise their own legal capacity with regard to their rights or whatever contractual obligations they have? This is germane, because it opens up the human rights discourse in rather unfathomable ways. I urge Sen. Kasanga to find how we can incorporate best practices around legal capacity. It sounds a little bit of a jargon, but that is what we need to look at so that we deal with other legislations that seek to exclude people with mental health conditions from participating in public life simply on account of perception of insanity or having unsound mind. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, during the Eleventh Parliament, we had the Marriage Bill. I proposed that persons with mental health conditions can consent to marriage. However, I was told that mad people cannot be allowed to get married. That kind of rigidity that comes out of ignorance on the part of all of us, including us, legislators, is what continuously excludes people who, if given an opportunity to contribute, would also make a difference. We will have the census and we will not have the traditional questions that were asked in 1989 and 2009. In 2019, we will have the Washington Group Short Set of Questions. There will be a question about mental health condition with about four parameters on cognitive processes and procedures. I encourage Kenyans to honestly answer that question, because we need to ascertain an estimation of the number of people who have mental health issues so that it justifies the funding. This is not in a straitjacket, but a continuum. You could have a lot of difficulties, mild or no difficulties on your mental health. There will be four parameters and people should confess if they doubt their mental health situations. The data can be extrapolated so that we can prove scientifically the prevalence, for example, among men, so that gender is mainstreamed in the programme according to the interventions that this legislation seeks to provide within the ambit of community health care. There is a provision on the right to property which I want to speak to. When most people are perceived to have mental incapacity, people think it is time to appropriate their properties. The penalty there is a bit lenient, because three years imprisonment or a fine of Kshs1 million is not sufficient. The Mover should consider increasing it because we could have properties worth millions of shillings and people could easily pay out of the proceeds when they become administrators of the properties. That will be empowering The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}