The Judiciary is underfunded compared to the Executive and Legislature, Chief Justice Martha Koome has said.
Koome said the best practice in resourcing judiciaries around the world is to allocate it at least 2.5 per cent of the national budget.
The Judiciary was allocated Sh17.1 billion for the 2020-21 financial year, which translates to a paltry 0.9 per cent of the Sh3.03 trillion national budget.
They need at least Sh21.9 billion more to operate optimally, said Koome.
In the same period, the Executive was allocated 97.2 per cent of the national budget and the Legislature got 1.9 per cent.
“The 0.9 per cent allocation is way below 2.5 per cent, which is the international funding standard for robust and efficient judiciaries around the world,” Koome said.
Koome spoke in Mombasa on Thursday during the stakeholders’ engagement session with the Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi and members of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee.
Also present were members of the Budget and Appropriation committee and the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.
Koome said because of the underfunding, the Judiciary experienced growth of three per cent in pending cases.
By the end of the financial year 2020-21, there were 649,112 pending cases, an increase from 617,582 the previous year.
“The resource allocation for the Judiciary has increased marginally over the past years, but has not been commensurate with the expected resource requirements of an emerging vibrant economy,” she said.
“The Judiciary should be sufficiently resourced to support and facilitate our economy.”
She also decried a shortfall in the number of judges and magistrates in the country, calling for additional staff to deal with the backlog of cases.
There are currently 174 judges spread across the hierarchy of the courts.
The Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, Employment and Labour Relations Court, and Environment and Land Courts translates into a ratio of 1:287,000.
“When we analyse this data, we realised that the shortfall in the number of judges is dire," Koome said.
"An example is the High Court where the capacity is at 38 per cent which is only 75 judges against the statutory requirement of 200 judges." said.
The Court of Appeal currently has 20 judges Koome said.
She said this has limited the capacity of the court to sit in circuits around the country as expected.
She said it also hampers the expeditious disposal of pending appeal case.
“Overall, the Judiciary is operating at only 56 per cent of its approved staff establishment," she said.
"In essence every person that is working in the Judiciary is discharging double the work that they should."
According to a recent data analysis conducted at the Milimani Commercial Courts, to clear the backlog will take more than 6 years.
“This is if the entire personnel work for 12 hours every day, including weekends,” Koome said.
She said the judges have a workload capacity of 1,562 cases per year vis a vis a standard productivity of 110 cases.
Judicial officers (Magistrates & Kadhis) have a workload capacity of 1,896 cases vis a vis a standard productivity of 220 cases per year.
“All this has resulted in a continually increasing backlog of cases and delay in the disposition of cases,” she said.
(Edited by Tabnacha O)
