The Effects of Extrajudicial Killings in Kenya by Police

The effects of extrajudicial killings in Kenya by police occur when the police and other government authorities commit killings without the sanction of a legal process or judicial proceeding. The extrajudicial killings or extrajudicial executions are unethical based on human rights and they circumvent the rule of law.

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya violate the due legal process as they do not accord the right to a fair hearing to the accused.

Table of ContentsShow/Hide

Effects of Extrajudicial Killings in Kenya

Here are some effects of the extrajudicial killings in Kenya by Police.

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya promote a culture of violence

A result of extrajudicial killings in Kenya is the promotion of violence. People become used to the idea that killing can solve their problems and bring peace and security. However, this is only a “gospel of death”.

History shows us that the result of violence is violence itself. When police target criminals and it becomes acceptable, then the extrajudicial killings spread to other “undesirables”. The definition of the undesirables is again left to the powers-that-be.

Extrajudicial killings only serve to embolden criminals to commit more (violent) crimes. They already know that there is no way out for them. It is either they kill or be killed.

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya lead to the rise of a police state

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya negate the due process afforded by warrants of arrest and the right to a trial. Without due process, it is upon the authorities to decide what is right or wrong, or even worse, who gets to live or die. Can we trust the police completely? Even if we do, can we entrust them with this absolute power?

Extrajudicial killing renders police officers a law unto themselves thereby turning them into equivalents of criminals.

The fact is, not all police officers are clean. Therefore, the idea that any police officer can take justice into their own hands should worry just about anyone. Extrajudicial killings provide a way to total anarchy by the police.

Some extrajudicial killings are usually categorized under a vocabulary of ‘crossfire’ or ’encounters’. The government tries to justify the killings by using the term ‘crossfire’. The government uses the term to refer to a gunfight between criminals and the police. We often hear cases of police in Kenya shooting ‘armed’ or ‘hardened’ criminals in a ‘crossfire’.

All these incidents perpetuate the police state and lead to state ’terrorism’.

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya lead to the violation of human rights

Extrajudicial killings lead to deaths without a trial or due process. The unfortunate thing is that it may extend to innocent people in the process.

Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) reports that the status of extrajudicial killings in Kenya is alarming. Cases of police brutality intertwined with extrajudicial killings, often of youth in informal settlements, are so prevalent in Kenya, yet arrests of perpetrators leave alone prosecutions are ironically lacking.

KHRC also reports that in Kenya, high profile cases of extrajudicial killings documented by the media always tend to lead to prosecutions of perpetrators. As such, there is a need to ensure all cases of extrajudicial killings in Kenya by police are prosecuted with the same vigour.

“Security forces carry out enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and torture with impunity…”

The police are often incriminated in many human rights violations. They ranged from extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and torture.

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya undermine the rule of law

When the police entertain extrajudicial killings, they undermine the rule of law. Apart from that, they encourage mob justice. They give the mob the legitimacy to cause and engage in killing outside the legal system. That is why mobs and vigilantes thrive in some parts of the country for ‘self-protection’, but they later mutate to criminal gangs.

These mobs and gangs know they can kill or lynch suspects with impunity. In that case, the police lose the moral high ground and make it far easier for extrajudicial killings through mob justice to thrive. When the police decide they do not want to capture and try suspects in a court of law, they send a bad message that the rule of law is useless.

When the police make such a risky decision, they make it easier for the mobs and vigilantes to make the same decision. They send the wrong message that the rule of law is not important to prosecute wrongdoing or resolve any conflict. Besides, they increase the risk of retaliatory attacks by criminals upon themselves.

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya lead to social breakdown

Extrajudicial killings occur outside the authority of the court, or outside of the usual judicial proceeding. There is nothing as ‘society’ when extrajudicial killings prevail. The rule of law distinguishes a civilized society from an uncivilized one.

In a civilized society, no one is above the law. It applies to the highest official to the most disadvantaged person. The law grants the Judiciary the power to put someone to death. This law is not a preserve of any other arm of government or state organ. However, the law grants the Judiciary this power under very special circumstances and after the Judiciary ensures it exhausts a very lengthy process of law.

The preconditions that the law puts upon the Judiciary are important because the law recognises the principle of “Right to Life”. The right to life is the most fundamental. It is universal and once taken, one cannot restore it.

Therefore, the law serves to protect the right to life for everybody. It upholds democracy and ensures that the legal process takes its course.

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya by the police undermine all this social order. They lead to a large section of the public losing trust in the police and the rule of law. To make matters worse, the poor and the most disadvantaged in society are the disproportionate victims of these types of killings.