Former Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko. PHOTO | PAUL WAWERU | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Senior
Counsel Keriako Tobiko, then Deputy Public Prosecutor, transited as the
first DPP. Mr Tobiko, who resigned from office recently following his
nomination to the Cabinet, came in with impeccable academic credentials —
including a First-Class Honours Bachelor of Laws degree from the
University of Nairobi and a Master of Law from Cambridge University,
England.
POLICE
Mr
Tobiko had the difficult task of reinventing and transforming the Office
of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) to align it with the
constitutional dictates of independence.
The DPP, who
has a secured tenure of eight years and such immense (sometimes
seemingly unbridled) powers to control criminal prosecutions, can order
the police to conduct investigations and to institute, undertake, take
over or discontinue prosecution.
Among Mr Tobiko’s
achievements is raising the number of prosecution counsel from 93 at
inception to 627 while non-legal staff increased from 112 to 402.
Mr
Tobiko devolved the ODPP. From only 13 field stations across the
country in 2011, it has fully fledged offices in all the 47 counties
with prosecution counsel in all the 121 court stations.
Then,
over 95 per cent of prosecutions in the subordinate courts were handled
by 305 police prosecutors, who have been replaced with professional
prosecution counsel.
PROMOTE
To
promote transparency and accountability in its decisions and enhance
efficiency and effectiveness of prosecutions, the ODPP developed key
prosecutorial policy documents, guidelines and manuals.
For
the prosecutors, perhaps the most exciting development was the
deliberate move to foster specialisation of the professional staff. The
ODPP established 29 vibrant thematic prosecution divisions, sections and
units.
To ensure responsiveness, access to justice and
good governance in service delivery, Mr Tobiko, in addition to
establishing a public complaints and compliments section, embraced
social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook for interaction with
the public.
These milestones were made possible by the
ODPP’s ability to attract development partners to invest their
resources in professional skills development and capacity building for
staff and other stakeholders.
This resulted in sponsorships for Master’s degree studies and targeted short courses for staff.
In
a globalised world fraught with transnational and cross-border crimes
requiring international legal cooperation, the ODPP joined regional and
international bodies.
TOBIKO
They
include the East Africa Association of Prosecutors (EAAP), for which Mr
Tobiko is the immediate former president; Africa Prosecutors’
Association (APA); and International Association of Prosecutors (IAP).
These
efforts have translated into a significant rise in performance. As the
Chief Justice stated in the latest State of the Judiciary and
Administration of Justice Report, Mr Tobiko attained the highest-ever
conviction rate of 72.4 per cent in corruption and economic crime cases.
Civil
society feted the DPP and ODPP in 2015/16 with the Best Public Service
Awards while, in 2016 and 2017, the ODPP received the coveted FiRE award
as the most improved public sector institution in financial reporting.
CRIME
Despite
the remarkable achievements, however, there are instances in which Mr
Tobiko could have asserted the independence of his office in the wake of
inaction by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI). Many a
time, the DPP directed the DCI to investigate incidents of crime and
forward the files to his office for directions but he was either ignored
or there were unexplained delays in executing the directives of the
DPP.
The biggest test for Mr Tobiko did, indeed, come
with last year’s General Election and the jury is still out since the
Elections Offences Act 2016 gives the DPP one year to prosecute the
related cases.
Nonetheless, Mr Tobiko leaves office
with his head held high. Overall, on a scale of one to 10, I give Mr
Keriako Tobiko a score of seven.
Mr Mboya, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, is a former CEO of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK).
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