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Hi-tech justice stalls in Kenya

Ken Macharia
By Ken Macharia, ITWeb’s Kenyan correspondent.
Kenya, 29 Jun 2011

Rated by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt and inefficient legal systems in the world, Kenya's judiciary has stalled in using IT to resolve its case backlog and lack of visibility.

Fully installed teleconferencing facilities in the country's high courts are lying idle, behind a legislative roadblock.

The Court of Appeal is now behind by six years, hearing cases as far back as 2004, and some criminal and civil cases have dragged in court for more than 20 years.

The teleconferencing link was to start in October 2010, allowing Court of Appeal judges to preside over cases without moving to different towns. It was expected to save taxpayers an estimated Sh30 million a year used by the rotational Court of Appeal for transport, accommodation, and the security of judges and support staff.

The project was to first connect the Nairobi and Mombasa High Courts. The teleconferencing system was installed by Cisco and the bandwidth for the live video hearings provided by telco Safaricom.

However, judicial officers say the project has been stalled by the lack of supporting legislation in the Proceedings Act.

In a report by the Judicial ICT Commission late last year, confirming that the video cameras and screens had been installed in special refurbished soundproof rooms in Mombasa and Nairobi courts, the commission stated: "The implementation of this system in the criminal courts is subject to the appropriate legal infrastructure being put in place. Draft guidelines for the use of this system have been drawn and forwarded to the Rules Committee for scrutiny."

Nine months after the report, the rules are yet to be released for the implementation. However, several other IT projects have taken off within the judiciary.

Chief among them is the digitisation of records going back 10 years. So far, 60 million pages and 400 000 files have been scanned and stored in a digital format.

Chief ICT officer at the judiciary James Iraya said digitising and archiving records for easier retrieval would help solve some of the issues related to corruption and inefficiency at the judiciary.

"Eighty percent of the problem we face is because of the manual system used at the registry. We are planning to have an online portal where the public can access case files by just logging onto the Web site," he said.

With last week's swearing in of a new chief justice and his deputy, it is hoped the judicial reform will now get extra impetus.

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