Judiciary now seeks public opinion on budgets cuts through open hearings

The Judiciary is now planning to have public hearings to help Kenyans understand its budgetary allocations, and what it needs to sustain its operations.

Chief Registrar of the Judiciary – Anne Amadi, told a pre-budget meeting on Wednesday their operations are crippled due to lack of funds.

 “We are going to have our public hearing where we will be sharing all the numbers so you can have a sense of what we are asking for and areas of focus,” Amadi said.

“we need to change our attitude towards justice needs in this country.”

When President Uhuru Kenyatta met Chief Justice David Maraga at the launch of the State of the Judiciary report (2018/19) last month, he insisted the Judiciary’s budget was unrealistic, and urged them to work what with what is provided.

But Maraga and Amadi insist the judiciary requires Sh4 billion to facilitate the building of courts and sustain 53 mobile courts in the country among other critical needs.

So dire is the financial crisis that five Court of Appeal Judges were recalled back to Nairobi due to lack of funds to sustain them.

Operations such as mobile courts, circuit courts of the Court of Appeal and Tribunals were suspended, leaving litigants in a dilemma as to when their matters will be concluded.

“Failing to fund the Judiciary affects other agencies that are in the justice sector, We have a huge pending bill to pay our lawyers, they refuse to come to court there is nothing much we can do, meanwhile people are rotting in jail as a result of this,” she said.

The Judiciary had requested for Sh31.2 billion allocation for this financial year but Parliament allocated it KSh14.5 billion, which the Treasury later slashed to Sh11.5 billion.

The figure was however, revised on 28 October after the High Court restrained National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani from implementing austerity measures touching on the Judiciary pending the hearing and determination of a suit filed by the Law Society of Kenya.

LSK Deputy Secretary Collins Odhiambo, who spoke at the Wednesday forum, noted that the budgetary cuts were slowing down the upgrading of Judiciary digitization plans which has in turn increased the number of pending cases.

“When the Judicial budget was cut, completing infrastructure was slowed down, it also interfered with matters of the court,” he stated

Amadi explained that the Judicial Service Commission requires funding to carry out the recruitment and appointment of 100 more Magistrates to deal with the backlog of 425,161 cases.

IEA Programme Officer-in-charge of Policy, Legal and Institutional Frameworks Philip Gichana, echoed her sentiments stating that the existing case backlogs is a testimony that the Judges and Magistrates are overwhelmed.