Ideas & Debate

EDITORIAL: Release of Judiciary’s funds is proper step

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The Supreme Court in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Reports that the Treasury has finally released the Judiciary’s recurrent and development budget must have been received with great relief by judicial officers and Kenyans at large.

The cash crunch had brought services at local courts to a standstill as the number of cases backlog increased while some courts were shut as a result.

The Treasury rightly received a lot of flak for slashing the Judiciary’s annual budget yet the Constitution is quite clear that it is only Parliament that has the powers to do so.

The release of the funds came a few days after the Chief Justice complained that the Treasury was starving the Judiciary of funds, a move that threatened to cripple its operations.

The Treasury had last month proposed drastic budgetary cuts on recurrent and development budgets of up to 50 percent for the Judiciary.

This was seen in some quarters a one-sided war against the Judiciary since other State bodies were not recipients of such drastic cuts.

While we welcome the release of the funds we must point out that the various arms of government, namely the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary must always strive to work in tandem with the tenets of Constitution. It makes no sense for one arm of government to wage a turf war against another arm.

The end result is that it is the common man and woman at the grassroots who will always bear the brunt of such silly fights.

The fact that some courtrooms were closed as a result of the funding impasse only means that judicial services were curtailed at the grassroots, which should not be the case.

Before a new financial year starts the respective State bodies come up with their budgets and state their activities for the period, hence any queries ought to be stated much earlier instead of bogging down an institution midstream.

It is upon the Treasury to sit down with all ministries and State bodies to come up with measures that will help the Kenyans get value for their taxes.

We aver that the law must be followed hence the need to adhere to the tenets of the Constitution.

Following the funds release the onus is now on the Judiciary to ensure that service delivery is enhanced and the number of rising backlog of cases should be tackled forthwith. Public funds must always be put to good use.