•The judge dismissed the application and ruled that it would be an abuse of the court process to review the orders.
•“Even those on other flimsy or non-priority or even non -justiciable lamentations as well as grievances appropriate for appeal.”
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A Nairobi court has recommended mechanisms to be put by the Judiciary to reduce the number of interlocutory revisions being filed in criminal cases.
Justice Nixon Sifuna in a judgment delivered on Monday said the judiciary needs to develop some screening process for revisions applications, preferably at the registry level and also at case management sessions.
In the case, the DPP had filed an interlocutory revision seeking for the court to review the orders that struck out some evidence in former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko’s graft case.
The judge dismissed the application and ruled that it would be an abuse of the court process to review the orders.
Interlocutory revisions are filed to challenge a ruling of the court with a view of varying the orders issued, unlike an appeal which is a substantive application challenging the whole ruling.
Justice Sifuna says the screening process will be to weed out improper revision applications such as the ones that impugn the refusal of an adjournment, or the fixing of a distant hearing date.
“Even those on other flimsy or non-priority or even non -justiciable lamentations as well as grievances appropriate for appeal,” he ruled.
He also said that some interlocutory revisions are essentially appeals disguised as revisions and the courts have to be vigilant and not only decline them but discourage them as well.
“In criminal cases, the scarce judicial resources and judicial time ought to be spent on trials and appeals rather than revisions. Indeed, judicial careers are grown from trials and appeals and it is unlikely that a judicial career will be developed solely on revisions,” the court ruled.
Judge Sifuna also said that there is a need for legal practitioners and parties in criminal cases to re-think their increasing uptake of revision applications saying many of them are merely a manifestation of the impatient nature of humans rather than a genuine pursuit of justice and rule of law.
He has also ruled that Interlocutory revision applications are disruptive in effect and often serve to clog the criminal justice process as well as prolong cases.
“By staggering and delaying the conclusion of cases, they, in the end, engender a mammoth case backlog, hence ultimately undermine the efficient case disposal and dispensation of justice,” he ruled.