Health providers must be protected by the law adequately

On October 19, the Court of Appeal put an end to Jackson Namunya Tali’s nearly nine years in prison. In the momentous decision, the three-judge bench ruled that mere suspicion, however strong, is not probative of an offence in the criminal justice system.  

Tali, a trained nurse who operated a clinic in the outskirts of Nairobi, was arrested in 2009 and accused of assisting a woman procure an unsafe abortion that consequently led to her death. Rather than being charged with the offence of unlawful abortion, he was charged with murder, convicted and imprisoned at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison.