JUDICIARY MARCHES WEEK

By EMMANUEL BOAZ Yesterday marked the first day of a country wide program dabbed Judiciary Marches week that is to be conducted annually between the 21st and 26th august. In Mombasa the marches were launched by the Mombasa Law Court resident magistrate Mr Stephen Riech and the resident judge Mr John Mwera. “We are launching the judiciary marches week, an event to be held once every year around the country, as part of our transformation program. Through the judicial matches’ week, we seek not only to make the judiciary more accessible to the public, but also to remind ourselves of the constitutional edict that judicial authority comes from the people,” said the chief justice Mr Willy Mutunga in his speech that was read by the Mombasa resident judge Mr John Mwera. The program is meant for the judiciary to carry out a series of activities that place its officials in all courts stations around the country from the judges, magistrates and kadhis, in order to be in direct contact with the mwananchi. “Judiciary staff are marching, proud of the fact that they are in the service of the public, and appreciative of the fact that it is this public that pays our salaries, pays our allowances, and buts our cars, and they do this despite the fact that 50 per cent of the Kenyan population live below the poverty line. We are bonded to serve Kenyans foot the bill for justice and we have a duty to explain ourselves to them,” said Mr Mutunga. This comes due to the expectation by the new constitution on the judiciary. It requires the judiciary to meaningfully engage with the public and all stakeholders. The judiciary is therefore transforming into a more open and accessible institution. “The constitution requires a recreation of public needs and continuous accountability in the execution of their mandate. This is part of the mental shift that public institutions and servants need to make as part of the Kenya`s new constitution dispensation. We live in an age where power must be accountable including judicial power. So we, as the judiciary, are marching as part of this accountability,” Mr Mutunga said. This is the first time the judiciary is making ties directly with the public by holding meetings at public places to explain how the courts work, and how the public can access and use them. They will visit various groups to receive public feedback, engage with education institutions and professional associations to explain the role of the judiciary and the staff will take part in charitable activities as part of the institution`s social responsibility action. Through the platform of dialogue and feedback the judiciary will nurture and sustain public support by responding directly to them and ultimately build faith in the institution and better deliver its mandate by delivering its own voice. In the next couple of months the chief justice will be joining colleagues and the public in the marches. “I shall join colleagues and the public in areas long marginalized to be a part of this conversation. No place is too remote for the reach of justice. The judiciary is for Kenyans there is no more favored and none discriminated against, “We are to establish court user committee at national, county and court station level, which give all the actors in the justice chain from the prosecution directorate, the attorney general, the police to the prisons to civil society organizations a forum to work together to resolve issues that prevent them from delivering on their mandates,” said the chief justice. A representative of the court users committee Mr Jackson Ondari asked more staff to be hired in the office of the dpp in order to fast track backlog of cases. “We must assist the courts in achieving its dream it takes two to tangle. As court users, we trust all players, the challenge of inadequate staff in the dpp`s office should be addressed to remove backload of cases this way we will be able to realize our dream in the short way possible,” Mr Ondari said. The Mombasa law court serves the greater Mombasa district and has several courts under it. We have the main law court housing both the high court and the chief magistrate`s court. A special court which is administered in compliance with the children`s act is the Tononoka children`s court handles all cases involving children and also handles child custody and maintenance disputes. There are 7 judges of the high court 15 magistrates, 2 kadhis and 165 judicial staff in the Mombasa Law Court. The Mombasa court also has the kadhis court presided over by the chief kadhi hence making Mombasa the headquarters of the kadhis court in the country and it handles civil cases in which one or both parties profess Muslim faith. It also handles marriage and divorce cases. The judiciary has also opened the municipal court to handle offences under the municipal by laws. “In order to make it more effective we are consulting with other stake holders to have the courts handle disputes and claims against bodies established under the Local Authorities Act which will include licensing approvals and rates defaults. With the aid of giving strengthening the capacity of the court to give rate payers value for their money, the municipal law courts will also handle suits brought by dissatisfied rate payers against the municipal council,” said the Mombasa resident magistrate Mr Stephen Riech. Lastly the Shanzu Law Courts which was inaugurated over two months ago; serves Bamburi, Kiembeni, Mtwapa, and Kijipwa police station in Kilifi. The Mombasa resident magistrate says that the establishment of the shanzu courts has gone a long way into decongesting the Mombasa Law courts and a source of convenience to litigants who used to travel long distance to come to Mombasa Island. In the next few years, we intend to open courts in Likoni and Changamwe, in order to take justice closer to the people. “It is a moment for us who are privileged to serve in the judiciary to open up to the public; explain to them how we work; and get feedback from the people on how to improve our services.” “We have embarked on an elaborate program to transform to transform the judiciary by making it people centered and services and service oriented. Indeed, this is the first pillar of the judiciary transformation framework, launched a little over two months ago.” “The new judiciary is becoming more open, accessible, modern, efficient and effective.” Challenges The resident magistrate Mr Stephen Riech says that the main challenge in Mombasa is the existence of backlog of cases which have been brought up by lack of adequate number of Judicial Officers. With the aid of solving the backlog of cases, Mr Riech said that 10 magistrates have been hired by the judicial service commission 6 of which have reported and 4 others are yet to report. The high court has 6969 civil cases, 41 criminal cases, and 75 criminal appeal cases which are lying pending. The chief magistrate court has 46,580 civil cases and 3,305 criminal cases that are lying pending. Way forward Strategies have been adopted in order to determine the cases these being reduction of the hearing of criminal cases for those charged with ordinary offences and are in remand to a maximum of 6 months. For those charged with capital offences, a 9 months target period has been set to finalize the cases. In civil cases, all cases will have hearing dates fixed by courts instead of relying on parties to initiate the process. “From next year there will be no civil cases filed without a hearing date. If on that date for hearing parties who have been notified and are not present, the cases will be dismissed,” the resident magistrate said. 7,390 civil cases in the high court and 7,280 civil cases in the chief magistrate court old cases where action has not been taken by parties will be dismissed for lack of prosecution in the next two months. Judgment will be delivered on due date and no orders for judgment to be deliveredon notice. Lastly provision of civil procedure act order 3 rule 3 will be implemented faithfully, Which includes small claims cases that involve not more than two parties and whose monetary value does not exceed Sh 49,999, fast track cases which are cases with undisputed facts and legal issues relatively few parties and would likely be concluded within 180 days after the pretrial directions and multi-track cases which are cases with complex facts and legal issues or several parties and which would likely be concluded within 240 days from the date of pretrial direction. In order to address the problem of lost or misplaced files, the Mombasa Law courts will in the next one month enter into partnership with Kenya Transitional Initiative of the USAID to digitize all files in Mombasa and save them in soft copy for easy retrieval. The Mombasa Law Courts have also set up an information and customer care desk to guide one when he or she comes into the premises, a hot mail number 0711 347 207 was provided were one can call or send sms giving the case number name and the question one needs to ask. The Mombasa law courts will get back to the person within 16 hours. An email address mombasacourt@judiciary.go.ke was set up in the aid to enhance interactiveness with clients. “We urge all of you to use the above avenues to communicate to us or better still you can sms your argument to 5834 for the ombudsperson,” said Mr Riech. However, to address the challenge of inadequate court rooms and chambers, the judiciary is putting up a modern court premises to house the court of appeal and all divisions of high with the help of the World Bank. To confirm the judiciary commitment, A Mombasa Law Court staff pledge was made publicly by the Mombasa judicial staff that they pledge to cordially great clients and welcome them to the courts, treat clients with courtesy, dignity and respect, they will explain the court and registry processes to clients with patience and understanding, they will accept and respond to clients` complaints and comments in written, verbal, or electronic form, they will provide reasonable assistance due to delay or inability to locate files and reconstruct any missing file with a sense of urgency and lastly that they will take all due and deliberate steps to expedite the finalization of cases.

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