The symphony of moving judges during an open day, and rethinking mobile courts

I am told that a funeral at Ahero, along Kisumu Nairobi highway is enough to create a gridlock on both sides of Nyando River stretching miles along the rice farms; a march by Senior Principal Magistrate Lillian Kiniale of the Nyando Law Courts was bound to create a snarl up.

Luo funerals can do that due to the length of the cortege that can stretch miles but also increasingly nowadays, for small toll stations along busy roads extolling contributions for the bereaved families. 

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Last week I attended what the Kenyan Judiciary has penciled in as public participation, an open day to allow the its users access the courts to learn about how the process of justice works and give feedback on the administration of justice that can be useful in reforms. 

The reforms are brought up in a court users committee, a platform of constisting of Magistrates, prosecutors, police, Law Society of Kenya, Probation, otherrelevant duty bearers and civil society organisations including local civil organisations like Kisumu Medical and Education Trust (KMET) who brought me along to see how the open days actually happen. 

This can be a powerful forum to ensure access to justice and I am told it has resulted in the opening of a new court at Kombewa after similar consultations in Kisumu identified the need to put up the extra court to reduce case backlogs and having users travel long distances to get justice.

Double taxation

When we got to Nyando Law courts at Ahero town, we found a group of elderly people gathered there.

They had been mobilized by Hellen Adhiambo who runs Oketha a local CBO that has helped women use the court process to fight back against rape and gender based violence in the area.

By understanding that rape constitutes criminal cases that should be adjudicated in court they have reduced the practice where such cases would be arbitrated within the communities or with local chiefs. 

The rest were the court officials from the clerks to the administrative staff colour coded so the public could see who to contact when they visit courts and not middle men who take advantage of the obscurity of the court process to extract a fee for accessing the officers of the court. 

Down to earth

Without the disarming officialdom, the insides of the functional state building felt at ease, an indication of the senior magistrate Kiniale’s demeanor who looked like she led her team in a way that she was not concerned about openness and scrutiny. 

She had a decent functional office, a secretary who smiled like she meant it , asking us to wait while she saw someone. In person, she was more amiable as I would have imagined, and very hands-on. At one time, she personally had to get a jembe for tree planting and made sure everyone planted one. 

But when she moved, you felt the structure of power start to shift around her. As soon as Onjiko Boys started off the march, trumpeting us into Ahero town, the gates opened up at just the precise time she made a beeline and closed right after.

wero

On the count of police-static, a bunch of officers trooped out of the police station next door and fell in line on the tarmac, taking on the rear guard that halted Traffic from Nairobi while Onjiko boys, court officials, users and the administrative ranks with their black sticks of authority came in the rear. 

It is treacherous to march in the Ahero sun when the tarmac is streaming in the distance and drivers of hulky trans-African trailers are impatient of what is holding the line, given the infamous chokehold. Ahero can hold the Northern corridor during floods and any accident that blocks the tiny bridge on River Nyando.

But the band, those high school boys could trumpet on those blow horns and thump the beats in the sun like it was nothing, the adults could not take as we maintained rank and file like school children behind them. 

I have always wondered how the people of Bar el Ghazal came so easy to these shores, but now I know how; wero.

In song we entered Ahero and it stood still for us, the trucks of course forced by authorities, but the people stopped everything they were doing and joined the band songs. 

In the sweat through the marketplace, we found competition for attention from KCB Bank also looking for people. We took a stop and the judicial officers sought first to explain the hard mechanics of what an open day was before they brought home in Luo, why the people should embrace an open court.

open court

At the open day the state officials tried to break down the officialdom and explain how to access court services. It provided open spaces to criticize the national police and prosecution of the lapses in the justice system that fuelled corruption and abuse as well as the chiefs for admitting settlement of criminal cases in their offices. 

But in the end what primarily stood out was the delay in solving the mountain of case backlogs, a problem that refuses to go given the limitations on judiciary staffing. Magistrate Kiniale explained that she has to divert cases to Tamu Law courts on due to the backlog.

The courts have tried everything to deal with this problem, including introducing digital filing and hearing of cases online. Even after they were facilitated by the installation of the monitors in court rooms, the challenge here has been perennial blackouts and internet outages.

The courts also tried to conduct a mobile court to ease access to rural areas, but the sheer costs of moving magistrates and the entire court around, including the clerical staff and the security, was just colossal. Simply put this symphony could not be scaled. 

Plus, moving the magistrate around means the resident court remains empty, and so begins a new pile-up of cases.

My feedback was maybe we need not move judges around, maybe we need simple digital solutions of setting up mobile courts; these Gen Z’s can surprise you with the kind of technology that can transmit in real time at the cost of a penny.