350,000 cases filed in courts last year— Report

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court David Maraga (right) with President Uhuru Kenyatta during the official presentation of the State of the Judiciary and Administration of Justice Report 2016/2017 at the Supreme Court Building on December 15, 2017. PHOTO | FRANCIS NDERITU | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

By SAM KIPLAGAT
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The litigious nature of Kenyans has been revealed in a report released by the Judiciary.

In the report released in December 2017, more than 350,000 new cases were filed in the past one year.

The report shows that a total of 344,180 cases were filed, out of which 258,982 were criminal while 85,198 were civil in nature.

MARAGA

According to the report, there are 533, 350 pending cases with some 66,214 cases being matters that have been pending in court for between five to 10 years.

Chief Justice David Maraga, while releasing the state of the Judiciary report on December 15 said courts have embarked on an accelerated case clearance programme to conclude all cases that are older than five years by the end of 2018.

The cases were filed between July 2016 and June 30, 2017. The report shows that in the same period, a total of 304,182 cases were concluded, comprising 218,796 criminal cases and 5,386 civil cases.

The cases that are still pending comprise of 185,369 criminal and 347,981 civil cases.

Mr Maraga said he was happy that Judiciary has already established 39 High Courts in 38 counties.

This means that only nine counties do not have a High Court station.

HIGH COURT

The latest High Court stations to be established are Makueni, Nyahururu and Narok.

He said the Judiciary aims to establish at least one magistrates’ court in each of the 290 sub-counties.

According to the data, the magistrates’ courts were the busiest during the financial year registering 300,655, cases which is about 87 per cent of the total case inflow in the Judiciary, during the said period.

This was closely followed by the High Court where 20, 553 cases were filed, accounting for about six per cent of all the new cases registered.

At the end of June 2017, there were 119,777 pending cases in the High Court, the highest court being the Milimani’s Family division with 18,832, pending cases, followed by Civil Division at Milimani court with 12,303 and then the High Court in Mombasa with 12,291 cases.