High Court Judge, Grace Nzioka, has made a landmark ruling on murder suspects declaring that they will no longer be required to undergo mental examinations before they can stand trial.
The Judge stated that it is not a provision in the legal statutes or in the Constitution that murder suspects must be subjected to mental assessment before they can take a plea.
Justice Nzioka noted that suspects can choose to be mentally assessed before they plead to a murder charge. Currently, all accused murder suspects are first mentally examined to establish their fitness to stand trial.
The Judge ruled that the current system hinders trials and adds to case backlogs in courts.
"There is no requirement to have murder suspects examined mentally before they can plead to charges," Justice Nzioka ruled.
The ruling was delivered while the Judge was listening to a case where a police officer is accused of killing a man on November 12, 2017.
The officer was expected to take plea on Friday, November 5. The accused law enforcer had protested calls by the prosecution to have him remanded for 10 days to allow a mental assessment to be carried out.
Through his lawyer, Danstan Omari, the officer argued that the request by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) was a violation of his rights, adding that the mental assessment should be optional.
Traditionally in Kenya, a suspect has to undergo a psychiatric test before pleading to murder charges. Lawyers, however, have stated that this is not compulsory under the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC).
The psychiatric test is compulsory for all High Courts handling murder cases in order to ensure a suspect has the capacity to plead to murder charges.
Lawyers stated that if a suspect is found to be insane, they will not take plea and there will be no trial and instead will be committed for treatment at a mental facility.
If one is found to be insane, the trial will proceed and if found guilty, the judgment will indicate guilty but insane. The accused will, under such circumstances be confined to a mental facility where they will undergo treatment until the doctors approve sanity.
And if the suspect is proved to be sane by the doctors, the DPP informs the court if they want to proceed with the charges or not.
