The Judiciary will close several courts after the Public Health Department served notices to that effect, citing deteriorating infrastructure of the stations.
Judiciary Chief Registrar Anne Amadi said Kandara and Wanguru law courts are among stations that have been issued closure notices due to overflow of septic tanks and blockage of sewer lines.
“With a 50 per cent reduction on Judiciary’s budget for maintenance of buildings, equipment and other assets and slashing of the development budget, it means some court stations could close down,” she told the Senate Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs and Human Rights.
Ms Amadi told the committee chaired by Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei that the Treasury has proposed a 50 per cent cut on the budget for maintenance of buildings, equipment and other assets that had initially been allocated Sh41.6 million.
The Treasury, through the Supplementary Budget I tabled in Parliament last week wants the budget for maintenance of buildings in the Judiciary reduced to Sh20.8 million.
“Half of the budget had been issued as appropriation in aid (AIEs) for maintenance of various court premises.
“A number of court stations have been served with notice of closure by the Department of Public Health due to deteriorating conditions of their infrastructure,” said Ms Amadi.
The Treasury, through circular number 14A of September 24, 2019, proposed a reduction of Sh2.89 billion from the Judiciary budget.
Out of the amount to be cut, Sh1.49 billion will come from recurrent while Sh1.41 billion will be chopped from development expenditure.
The amounts have been hived off the budget meant for the dispensation of justice and provision of equitable access to expeditious delivery of judgments.
The Sh2.9 billion slash in the Judiciary’s budget is likely to spark off a fresh round of bitter exchanges between the justice system and the Executive.
The Sh2.9 billion cut translates to a 14.8 percent reduction of the budget, which is a breach of budget law that allows the Treasury to vary expenditure by a maximum of 10 percent through supplementary budgets.
Chief Justice David Maraga had last month complained that the Treasury was starving the Judiciary of funds, a move that threatened to cripple court operations. This was then followed by a memo to staff indicating that the Treasury had restored the Judiciary’s budget.
LAVISH TRAVEL
The cuts on recurrent expenditure follow an order from the Treasury to ministries to slash budgets for lavish travel, advertising and training, which the State said were examples of wasteful spending. Justice Maraga said some courts had stopped working and a drive to speed up corruption cases was on hold.
“Several critical processes in the courts and the Judiciary will be severely crippled,” he said at a news conference.
“Some of the incidents that we encounter are deliberate attempts to undermine the Judiciary … I am not serving at the pleasure of a few people in the Executive who are bent on subjugating the Judiciary,” he said.
National Assembly’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee is set to make a case for Judiciary spending to the Budget and Appropriations Committee after scrutinising the budget.
The Judiciary was allocated Sh18.9 billion for the fiscal year starting in July, well below its request for 33.3 billion.
The Treasury is seeking MPs approval to increase spending by 2.8 percent to Sh3.13 trillion in its 2019/20 budget in a review that saw cuts in the recurrent expenditure.
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