Seated from left: JSC member Mercy Deche, Chief Justice David Maraga, Chief Registrar of the Judiciary Anne Amadi, Appeal Court judge Mohamed Warsame with newly recruited magistrates on December 5, 2017. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The Judiciary has always been on the receiving end of public displeasure over delays in judicial process, miscarriage of justice, corruption and even confusion when judges and magistrates differ on important matters of law.
It is, therefore, a welcome relief that Chief Justice David Maraga is spearheading reforms to boost confidence in the judicial system. The Commercial Justice Sector Reforms Project that he launched last week would appease the business community that they would enjoy faster quality service.
A grant by the Netherlands, the project involves automation of the commercial courts by introducing electronic filing, payment and case tracking systems to enhance their service delivery and transparency. It would give lawyers and other court users an opportunity to handle these transactions from other locations, saving them time and cost.
AUTOMATION
The success of the automation, which is supported by technical assistance from the International Law Development Organisation, would boost the business community’s confidence in the courts and support the government agenda of improving the enabling environment for private sector growth.
The project ventures into a field that has benefitted from significant interventions but failed to achieve the expected results.
The justice system remains a bottleneck to business development because judicial reforms, funded heavily by the government through tax funds, grants from bilateral donors and costly loans from development agencies, only contribute to measured outcomes.
A case in point is the Judicial Performance Improvement Project being implemented to improve the citizens’ access to quality and timely justice. Funded by a $120 million (Sh12 billion) World Bank loan, it is one of the largest reform interventions. But for nearly six years since it was approved, in November 2012, it has only achieved half of the target.
RISK OF FAILURE
The bank’s latest assessment, the implementation status and results report for May 2018 rate the project “high” on risk of failure to meet its objectives — even after it was restructured in 2016.
Despite a remarkable increase in the number of beneficiaries and percentage of users reporting timely court services, the Judiciary’s failure to meet critical targets would point to a systemic problem of operational inefficiency or lack of internal support for the reforms.
Failures stand out in two key areas. First, seven courts were renovated by March 2018 against a target of 20 by the December project closure date. Some of the works stalled due to suspicious procurement and contractual differences.
WORLD BANK
Second, and more serious, court cases completed within 360 days (or a year) of filing actually declined from 70 per cent in December 2015 to 60 per cent last June and further to 54.5 per cent in December. The target, 80 per cent, would certainly not be met in the next six months.
It’s also worth noting that half of the project funds haven’t been used and, hence, would be cancelled and returned to the World Bank.
And this isn’t the only major intervention that failed to transform the Judiciary. In November 2003, the National Rainbow Coalition government, with the support of 15 development agencies, mounted a massive Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector reform programme to improve the Judiciary, anti-corruption and other government agencies.
RESOLVING DISPUTES
The results and impact, when the programme closed in 2007, were less than envisaged.
The business community is sensitive to the quality of justice and invests only where the risk and cost of resolving disputes is reasonable. While automating the courts, the CJ needs to ensure resolution of long-standing commercial disputes to remove uncertainty in business. Weak areas that need fixing include tackling fraud and corruption in Judiciary projects and administration of justice.
Mr Warutere is a director of Mashariki Communications Ltd. ptwarutere@gmail.com
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