JAMES MATATA WAMBUA AND MICHAEL SAA WAMBUA VS JAMES MATATA WAMBUA AND MICHAEL SAA WAMBUA VS

The appellants in this matter were charged, tried, convicted and sentenced for the offence of Robbery with violence Section 296 (2) of the Penal Code.
The two appellants were sentenced to suffer death which term they now say has since been commuted to life imprisonment.
The appellants have come to this court pleading to have the court review his sentence from life imprisonment to a definite prison term.
The two contend that life imprisonment as a sentence is indeterminate in nature and is inhuman, oppressive and degrading. It is for that reason that they seek to have the court interfere with the same and substitute therefore a definite sentence.
The state through Mr. Chebii prosecution counsel opposed the application.
According to Mr. Chebii, this court lacks jurisdiction to entertain the application considering that the sentence that the appellants are now serving was pursuant to a decision rendered by the court of Appeal in Criminal Appeal No. 106/2016 Nairobi. The Court of Appeal had upheld the death sentence after dismissing the appeal.
The appellants have conceded that they have been to the Court of Appeal and that their appeal before that court was dismissed on both conviction and sentence.
It is my considered view that this court lacks the jurisdiction to entertain the application for review of sentence by the appellants. This court cannot interfere with the Court of Appeal’s decision on sentence which in any event has been varied by the President.
To intervene in the circumstances this court would be going against the well settled norm that decisions of higher courts bind this court.
The hierarchy of courts must be respected by all and for that reason I decline to entertain the application and order that this application be and is hereby struck out.
The appellants can try their luck with the court of appeal if they so desire.
It is so ordered.