GLANCE FACTS
DELAYED JUDGEMENTS
In another case, ageing Ombui Onyango from South Mugirango in Kisii County has been waiting for a land dispute to be concluded at the High Court for over 40 years.
Meshack Ombese has been appearing on behalf of his sick father in another land dispute pending before Justice Sitati.
Ombese, who hails from Matongo in Nyamira County, says the matter has been pending since 1995 and is yet to be concluded. His father can no longer attend court sessions because he was ailing, partly as a result of the land matter that has been dragging for years.
By Robert Nyasato
It has been a long wait for justice in Southern Nyanza, where advocates allege slow hearing and ruling of cases, some which have been pending since the 1970s.
This is the reason lawyers in Kisii downed their tools recently to press for the removal of two local judges, Justice Ruth Sitati and Rosline Korir on grounds that they delayed in delivering judgments.
And to demonstrate their frustration before the two judges, the lawyers cited the case of Osoro Omorachi. Though he is diabetic, he had to spend a month behind bars because a judge failed to timely deliver ruling on an application to release him on medical grounds.
Omorachi was committed to a one-month civil jail over a Sh200,000 debt he owed Fanny Moraa Chweya after the High Court in Kisii found him guilty of the offence.
Endless trips
But his lawyer, Mr Lazarus Mose, made an application before Justice Korir on February to have him released from the Kisii GK Prison because he was diabetic.
Despite certifying the application urgent, Korir is yet to make ruling and issue any orders on the application months after Omorachi served the entire term in jail against medical advice.
“Even if the orders we asked for are issued now, they would be of no use because my client has suffered in prison to the full term despite his medical condition,” lamented Mose.
This case captures the agony lawyers and litigants at the Kisii high court are undergoing, the subject of a strike by advocates against Judges Justice Ruth Sitati and her colleague Korir that entered its third week.
And Omorachi is not alone in this. Members of Olamil Group Ranch in Trans Mara, Narok County have been traversing the corridors of Justice for over 40 years since 1971, contesting selling part of their land without their consent or knowledge.
The case was transferred from Narok High Court to Kisii in 2010, but to date they are yet to get any ruling over the matter.
