CJ wants government to facilitate judiciary for smooth running – KBC

Chief Justice David Maraga has cited lack of finances and manpower as the main impediment to delivery of services in the judiciary leading to backlog of cases.

Maraga says the judiciary needs 2.5 per cent of the national budget to facilitate its performance.

Speaking Thursday during the release of the state of State of Judiciary and administration 2012/2019 report at the Supreme Court, Nairobi, the Chief Justice said more than 400,000 cases are filed every year yet only 350 cases are dispensed with. He said the backlog would continue without proper facilitation.

Maraga says courts across the country lack enough judges and magistrates to handle cases on time. Maraga gave an example of Kitale, Meru, Eldoret and Kisii Courts, which need urgent attention to continue serving Kenyans well.

The CJ mentioned that land and environment courts has a backlog of over 17 thousand cases that could not be heard any time soon but after a period of one-year due lack of required number of judges and magistrates to handle those cases.

He underscored the need for the judiciary to embrace ICT citing that all their documents are still manual.

Maraga noted that lack of ICT has led to disappearance of case files which has encouraged corruption an issue he called on president Uhuru Kenyatta to intervene by setting a side budget for the installation of ICT services.