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"id": 972137,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/972137/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "West Mugirango, FORD-K",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Vincent Kemosi",
"speaker": {
"id": 13508,
"legal_name": "Vincent Kemosi Mogaka",
"slug": "vincent-kemosi-mogaka"
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"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to also support the Motion. The establishment of the Judiciary is under Chapter 10 of the Constitution of Kenya. Article 160 of the Constitution has given the Judiciary the independence it deserves. In reality, the independence of the Judiciary, under the Constitution of Kenya 2010, has not been the reality. For any entity to obtain its independence, that particular entity, including the Judiciary, must have enough resources to run its affairs. It is obvious that the Judiciary or the court system in Kenya has been starved of resources. That has made the backlog of cases to increase day by day. The state of the Judiciary currently is wanting. You realise that after we promulgated the Constitution in 2010, between the year 2011 and 2016, there were establishments of many courts in Kenya. Initially, before the new Constitution, we only had 11 High Court stations. However, during the period between 2011 and 2016, we had an increase in High Court stations numbering to 40 or more. Construction works of most of the court houses are not ongoing because there are no enough funds to finish them. Even the lower and subordinate courts have suffered a similar fate. This Report captures the state of the Judiciary. The Judiciary currently needs not less than Kshs2.1 billion so that it can complete construction works. We have not mentioned recurrent expenditure, which is a day-to-day expenditure of the court system. Last year, because the Judiciary had been starved financially, the Chief Justice had to recall Court of Appeal Judges from various stations, including Mombasa, Kisumu, Malindi and Nyeri, to Nairobi because they had no enough resources. This has hampered administration of justice. The only way we can dispense with justice is for this august House to allocate enough resources to the Judiciary. It is a fact that we cannot have justice where the Executive does not respect the independence of the Judiciary. That has been provided under the Constitution. This is absolute abuse of the Constitution of Kenya. It is a fact that after the Judicial Service Commission concluded the process of filling up various positions of judges last year, the Executive blatantly refused to avail money for that purpose. Article 166 of the Constitution of Kenya does not give the President of the Republic of Kenya an option of either to appoint or not to appoint the judges of the High Court. It only gives him the mandate to appoint. So, he does not have the powers to vet or not to appoint judges. We can only do this if we stand up and say enough is enough. As we speak, the only institution that has the faith of Kenyans is the Judiciary and not the Executive or Parliament. So, it is necessary for us to realise the independence of the Judiciary, that we give them enough resources. The Constitution provides for a Judiciary Fund. The monies allocated by this House should directly be channeled to the Judiciary Fund. In this financial year, the Judiciary had asked for Kshs33.8 billion but they were allocated Kshs18 billion. That is a shortage of about Kshs15 billion. How are they going to execute their duties if they have a shortage of Kshs15 billion? It is my submission that we need to look at the Judiciary. The Judiciary must be allocated funds. In order for it to have independence, I propose that, going forward, as Members of Parliament, we come up with an amendment to the Constitution so that we provide that during allocation, a certain percentage is given to the Judiciary. That way, it will be the mandate of this House to directly allocate the funds to the Judiciary as provided in the Constitution. If we do that, we will be able to limit the role of the Executive in allocating funds to the Judiciary. In terms of backlog of cases, that is a headache in itself. Most of the people in the Executive have never experienced a backlog of cases in various courts. They have never been taken to court so that they can experience the pain of having a court case delayed in court. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}