Muruatetu judgement to be applied in murder cases only, Supreme Court directs

The Supreme Court has directed to end the jurisprudence in the Muruatetu case.

Presiding over the proceedings of the Supreme Court as the third President of the Court, Chief Justice Martha Koome directed that the Muruatetu jurisprudence was only applicable in cases where accused were given the mandatory death sentence, as provided under sections 203 and 204 of the penal code.

“The proceedings have settled the interpretation of the directives given by the Court in the Francis Muruatetu case that declared Section 204 of the Penal Code unconstitutional in as far as it interfered with the Constitution discretion of a Judge to determine Murder cases,” stated the court.

The Muruatetu case is a case in which a convicted murder, Francis Karoki Muruatetu, was immortalised following a landmark case where he successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of Kenya to declare the mandatory death penalty unconstitutional.

Muruatetu and his accomplice Wilson Thirimbu were convicted for the murder of Nairobi businessman Lawrence Githinji, who was killed in February 2000.

In a landmark ruling in 2017 the Supreme Court agreed with Muruatetu and ruled that the mandatory death penalty was unconstitutional and thousands of inmates have had their sentences reduced and others released from jail using that ruling.

The ruling, which is simply quoted as the Muruatetu case, reverberated across the legal world and became case law.

It not only dealt with the issue of right to life, but also set precedence on matters of the independence of the various arms of government, right to fair trial, among others.

Many inmates who are currently behind bars for various offences have been relying on the Muruatetu case to get lesser sentences.

“To clear the confusion in regard to the mandatory death sentence in offences other than murder, we direct in respect of other capital offences such as treason and robbery with violence, that a challenge of those sentences should be properly filed in court,” the court ruled.

The court further said the cases filed should be presented and fully argued before the High Court and escalated to the Court of Appeal if necessary at which a similar outcome as Murutetu may be reached.

“Muruatetu cannot be the authority for stating that all the provisions of the law prescribing mandatory or minimum sentences are inconsistent with the constitution,” Justice Koome ruled.

Koome directed that all those who had been handed the mandatory death sentence would be given a chance to file appeals and get new sentences.