Prime
Solve issue of magistrates too
Parliament on Thursday approved a motion to increase the number of High Court judges from 51 to 81, a highly laudable step in the quest for justice.
The move is laudable because it will help deal with the lingering problem of case backlog in the Judiciary. For starters, too many cases are not heard on time, and as a result justice is defeated on many occasions.
Take the example of the highly publicised case in which Mr Mathew Kanyamunyu and others are accused of shooting Kenneth Akena to death in November 2016.
Prosecution already told court that investigations into the matter were concluded and they are ready for the trial. But the trial has not taken off ever since. Mr Kanyamunyu and his co-accused were granted bail late last year.
By the time the delayed trial happens, there is a chance, for instance, that a valuable witness may have died, or his/her recollection of events may have slipped, affecting the chances of success of the case.
We just use this case for illustration but there are many more cases, especially the less publicised ones, which have taken even longer to be heard and are in danger of being lost. This is one of the key reasons cases need to be heard speedily and conclusions reached.
But here we are just talking about the High Court. The problem is perhaps worse in the lower courts. If you visit a magistrate’s court in a far-flung township, you will encounter a magistrate who has hundreds of cases to deal with.
The cases will be called and the suspects will take to the dock, only for the magistrate to allow them hardly 10 minutes before scribbling on his/her file and announcing the date the suspects will next appear in court.
There will be so many such cases until the few cases on which the magistrate intends to lay emphasis will be called. You will leave with the impression that the overwhelming majority of suspects and complainants are unlikely to be properly heard, or if they are heard at all, the hearing will be delayed and may in the end not yield justice.
Now that the government is considering improving the delivery of justice, the increase in the number of High Court judges needs to be followed up with an increase in the number of magistrates and perhaps magistrates’ courts across the country.
Steps should also be taken to ensure that all judges and other judicial officers do their jobs with the necessary speed, integrity and competency.
