Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Reducing 900k cases- a novel suggestion

If you've ever been unfortunate to have a case running through the hallowed turfs of Kenyan courts, you'll notice that unless you grease the clerk's assistant's palm; the clerk's palm; the court registrar's palm; the magistrate's palm and possibly the prosecutor and that branch, if its a criminal case, your case will take long because of
  • of the existing and looong line of cases
  • missing files-where the greasing comes in
  • magistrates and judges holiday, seminar and training schedule.
Most are off for the whole of December, April and August. Additionally, they have seminars every few weeks.
So my novel suggestion is to take a month's holiday like every other civil servant and do some cases so we can see a 30% reduction.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Most of the criminal cases are for nonsense crimes (small-time non violent, misdemeanors and minor traffic offences).

Rapid clearance if role for petty cases is delegated to civil bodies (community appointed elders) who determine the ammount of non-punitive "punishment" (e.g. hours of community service + probation period).

Gov can then take care of serious offences and deliver justice quickly!

Coupled with rehabilitation, such a model would in my view help correct and integrate light offenders back to society (instead of HARDENING them - as the current system does!).

Civil cases can go through the same process of community Arbitration and resolution. Closed cases can be signed off in writing as resolution agreements - admissible in court. Someone who disagrees can have the right to appeal to formal courts - with risks of bearing the costs as a frivolity deterrent.

Ideas ni mingi. we need to get rid of these old, rigid, mentally colonized politicians and take charge of our country!

Youth Power!
:-)