Amendments
Officers from the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) on Thursday held a public participation forum on the amendment of the National Coroners Service Bill (2023) in Meru County, where the residents had a chance to familiarise themselves with its provisions and give their input.
Speaking to journalists after the forum, a State Counsel in the AG’s office Mr Thomas Kibunja said they have been conducting a series of such forums which began in the North Rift and would go all the way to Kilifi County especially due to the Shakahola incident that took place there.
He said the purpose of the forums was to have Kenyans give their input on the bill which was intended to assist in operationalising the service by curing a number of anomalies that were noted in the act that was assented to in 2017.
He said some of the issues that were noticed in the act include the constitution of the National Coroners Council which is the body mandated with oversight of the service. “The council’s key challenge was that it was constituted of state officers in their own capacity and they did not have the ability to nominate representatives which should have made the functionality of the council a bit difficult together with the number of other issues in the bill,” said Kibunja.
He added that the purpose of the forums was therefore to engage with stakeholders, hear their views on the issues that we have highlighted, with a view to proposing the amendments before Parliament. “We hope once we are able to consolidate the different comments and views, we will put the bill to cabinet approval and thereafter table it before Parliament as a government sponsored bill,” said Kibunja.
He revealed that some of the views that they noted included challenges with the offence that has been proposed for failure to report a reportable death where there seems to be a general sense of fear when it comes to Mwananchi engagement with the police.
“Some think that should they report these deaths, they may be considered suspects. So, what we are trying to emphasise is that this offence is meant to deal with those who are purposefully neglecting to report because of the bad intentions they may have either to defeat access to justice or to maybe get away with a crime and these are the ones we are targeting with that offence,” said Kibunja.
He said they were also out to promote the role of the coroner service which is to assist investigate the deaths that go unknown.
Kibunja added that they were also providing a number of alternatives in terms of how one can report a death, where they want to explore the reporting directly to the coroner as one alternative as well as the National Government Administrative Officers who could also augment the reporting process so that if mwananchi is fearful of going to the police, then there are other channels he can follow.
Government Chief Pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor said it is a constitutional right of the public to give their views when a new law is being formulated so they could feel part of the law once it is assented to.
“But to ensure the complementarity between the police and the coroner service, we have provided that where the police are informed, they should report to the coroner and when the coroner is informed, he should then report to the police so that we can have both agencies working together,” said Dr Oduor.
“So, the police remain the primary investigating arm but the coroner service comes in with that medical or forensic expertise to come in and help in attaining the cause, manner, and circumstances, surrounding the death and then that information can guide the efforts of the police in figuring out if there are any perpetrators and who they are,” said Dr Oduor.
He said in the past two weeks, they have gotten a lot of feedback from the public on the contents, reportable deaths, who to report to, burial permits, the chiefs and with all that they will do a very good document which will be acceptable to the public. “Remember that when we write the law, we do it for the purpose of the public and the public needs to be part and parcel of the process so that even as they follow it, they will know that it was not made by strangers but them,” said Dr Oduor.
He said by the end of the entire process, they would sit as a team and see how they would go about it so they could have more people reporting deaths without fear.