Chief Justice Willy Mutunga has set very high targets to combat the problem of case delays in the courts.
Under the new targets, case files will be retrieved within five minutes of being requested by members of the public.
Dr Mutunga has also promised that courts will now hear cases within 60 days of their being filed and give a decision within 12 months.
The new targets have come complete with a new institutional mechanism to measure and monitor performance by courts and judges on these targets, and on a regular basis.
Known as the Directorate of Performance Management, the new bureaucracy being created will be receiving court returns and capturing data on movement of cases and files on a daily basis. The good thing about institutions like these is that they outlive the individuals who introduce them.
According to Dr Mutunga, habitual late comers and absentees will be required to put in extra hours. Stations that remain notorious for delaying cases and losing files will be exposed. Will the new experiment work? Will the Judiciary deliver on these ambitious targets? We must wait to see.
But I think that Dr Mutunga needs to be supported not only for raising the bar for judges and magistrates, but also putting the focus on the biggest weaknesses in our justice system.
Kenyans have very many good qualities, but a sense of value for time is not one of them. There are inordinate delays in the disposal of cases in our courts. As the saying goes, justice is blind, but does it have to be lame? The statistics are scary.
This week, Dr Mutunga cited one particular case that has been dragging at the High Court since 1969. He also disclosed that the backlog of cases currently stands at 400,000.
Damning as the statistics are, they are a big improvement from what used to be the norm before he joined the Judiciary.
Indeed, reducing the long delay before a case reaches hearing and shortening the hearing itself, have been top priorities for Dr Mutunga’s regime.
Hardly a few months ago, the Judiciary rolled out a project dubbed the ‘old cases clearance initiative”, which saw cases in the Nairobi High Court Civil Division listing 14,900 old cases listed for hearing, 11,100 dismissed, 3,669 settled or withdrawn, and 154 set down for hearing and final determination by mid next year.
The exercise has now been spread to upcountry courts. Clearly, our judiciary is going through a gradual process of institutional renewal.
This is something to be lauded because as we all know, protracted litigation in courts of law can seriously damage the health of commerce. And, when the Judiciary is slow and corrupt, it introduces uncertainties into the business climate.
Laws may not mean much and those with commercial disputes may avoid taking cases to court unless they are certain to be the highest briber.
Courts can be circumvented, for instance, by hiring private arbitrators or resorting to the protection provided by organised crime.
When you see execution-like killings of businessmen becoming too common as is the case today, it is usually part of the brutal private system of dispute resolution.
But for Justice Mutunga to succeed on a sustainable basis, the supply side of the equation will also need to be addressed.
We take cases to court in mind-boggling numbers. Our lawyers ask for adjournments on the most flimsy of grounds.
If we cannot achieve an efficient and properly functioning judiciary, Vision 2030 will not happen. All those extravagant economic growth predictions we make will turn out to be worthless.
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