The bad blood between the office of the DPP and the DCI played out in the open during the annual National Conference on criminal justice reforms conference held in Great Rift Valley Lodge in Naivasha on Tuesday.
The conference was attended by senior officers including DCI boss George Kinoti.
The office of the ODPP noted that the blatant use of excessive force, arrests and detentions without reasonable cause was eroding public confidence in the criminal justice system.
Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Noordin Haji warned that his office would not charge anyone in court based on insufficient or arbitrarily acquired evidence.
Without mentioning names, Haji expressed his concern about the violation of the accused rights through intimidation, forceful disappearance and arbitrary detention.
“Prosecutors play an important role in ensuring that everyone has the right to a fair trial and insufficient or arbitrarily acquired evidence will not be used to prefer charges,” he said.
He revisited the dumping of bodies in River Yala noting the security department was now perceived as contributors to insecurity rather than beacons of protection, law and order.
“This perception undermines the rule of law and the River Yala situation is evidence of a criminal justice system that is critically violating the rights of the accused,” he said.
On his part, the CS for Interior Fred Matiang’i said that the State had implemented policies and institutional and operational reforms to boost the wellness and capacity of the police force.
He commended the national police service for working with human rights organizations on extrajudicial killings and incidents of people disappearing on allegations of police misconduct.
“The training curriculum of police officers at all levels from recruitment to training has now incorporated training on human rights,” he said.
Matiang’i added that the government had provided better housing, social programs targeting mental health awareness, medical health insurance, increased the number of police stations and recruited more police officers.
“These improvements in the welfare of police mean a police officer in good health will likely observe human rights in the line of duty,” he said.
On her part, Chief Justice Martha Koome who was the chief guest said that they were committed to ongoing reforms within the criminal justice system.
She expressed her concern over the period it was taking to wind up criminal cases with some going for as long as 10 years affecting the victims and the accused persons.
“In some EU countries, it takes a maximum of two years to wind up and determine a criminal case and we should borrow a leaf from this,” she said.
During the conference, she hit out at some police officers for seeking a fee from victims of gender-based violence to fill in P3 forms which were declared illegal by the High Court.
“Despite the commendable interventions that the Ministries of Health and the practice of charging victims to have the form filled remains rampant across the country,” she said.
