• She said family disputes mostly get worse after going through formal court processes.
• Ngugi said the system has helped settle 33 land conflicts in Kajiado county in the last six months.
Image: ANDREW KASUKU
Chief Justice Martha Koome wants judicial officers to increase the use of alternative mechanisms to settle disputes to reduce the backlog of cases in court.
In a speech read on her behalf by her deputy Philomena Mwilu on Tuesday, Koome said the approach would be effective in cutting off the bureaucracies and cost challenges that stand in the way of the poor and marginalised in accessing justice.
She spoke at the first conference on the alternative justice system at Tangaza University College in Karen, Nairobi.
The conference will run for three days. It draws participants from the criminal justice system and the civil society.
Koome said the court processes tend to be adversarial and make participants have strained relations at the end of it.
She said alternative means such as the use of dialogue fostered by community elders are easily accessible and cheaper compared to formal means.
“These means have been used for centuries and they have proven effective. Their participatory nature makes them people-centered, enshrining views from many people,” she said.
She said family disputes mostly get worse after going through formal court processes.
High Court judge Joel Ngugi, the chairman of the judiciary’s alternative justice steering committee, said the system has been helpful in sorting out conflicts at the grassroots.
He said the system has helped settle 33 land conflicts in Kajiado county in the last six months.
Ngugi said this is a huge milestone given that courts take a minimum of three years to settle a single land dispute.
A boda boda group in Nakuru has also been a beneficiary in which 300 conflicts among their members have been settled without going to court.
Ngugi said there are 649,112 cases in court in which alternative dispute resolution mechanisms can help sort out and dispense justice swiftly to the aggrieved.
“There are 19 per cent of people in this country without access to recourse when they are aggrieved. The alternative mechanism can help attend to them and enable them access justice in a cost-friendly and non-confrontational manner,” the judge said.
The judge said such means help in channelling the disputes to courts in a structured manner as the mechanisms use the structures put together by the Judiciary, including the court users committee.
Edited by A.N