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"content": "arbitrate on any type of dispute; all the professionals are in it; whether it is a dispute involving engineering, valuation, pure law, insurance, they are there and are qualified. As has been stated by the people who moved the Motion suspending that particular Standing Order, and is commonly known in this country, we have a very big backlog of civil cases pending in courts. In fact, the Chief Justice the other day mentioned that there are 853,000 civil cases pending in court. Kenya has one of the bigest backlog of cases. Kenya has one of the bigest backlog of cases, because of active economic and social development that is taking place in the country. Where you have a high level of business interactions going on, then you expect the number of disputes to be big. But we must have a way of dealing with this. At Milimani Commercial Courts, and here I commend the Chief Justice because he constituted a Commercial Division to be listening to commercial cases; that division is at Milimani Commercial Courts. At Milimani Commercial Courts alone, we have an average of 90,000 civil cases filed. This is what we are now confronting. In many of the developed countries now, say the UK, which I am more familiar with, before a court can hear you on a case, you must satisfy the court that you have undertaken mediation, or arbitration, and that you have failed to agree. That is the only time when the court can say it can hear you. A number of these cases are about agreements, and in most of the commercial agreements, there is always an arbitration clause. Therefore, a number of these cases ought properly to be referred to arbitration, because of that arbitration clause, which is in a number of commercial agreements, and in connection with which disputes arise. Therefore, we are talking about dealing with those types of cases. At the recent conference, which was held here and where we had judges and magistrates from the entire East Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi- -- In fact, all their chief justices, judges of appeal, judges of the High Courts and magistrates were here. They were considering this one issue. One issue that they were considering is how the courts can drive the economy, and what the role is of the commercial court in driving that economy. It has been stated a number of times that you will only attract investments in any country or the business community will only feel comfortable if there is a system in which their disputes can be handled expeditiously and impartially by an independent tribunal or court. Therefore, it is no wonder that this meeting recommended that arbitration should be encouraged in the region. At the East African level, the East African Treaty establishes under Article 32, that arbitration can take place between the East African Community institutions, business partners or individuals. So, we have a framework for that."
}