Law Society of Kenya officials protest launch of Court of Appeal in Malindi

By Paul Gitau and Willis Oketch

MALINDI, KENYA: Chief Justice Willy Mutunga on Friday directed judges countrywide not to go for the August vacation to clear pending criminal matters and reduce case backlogs.

But lawyers based in Coast province boycotted one of his main functions in Malindi to protest the opening of the Court of Appeal there.

"In order to show our commitment I am directing judges countrywide to dedicate their Colloquium  to deal with criminal matters that had delayed in court for long,"he noted.

 The CJ made the remarks at the new Malindi Law courts during the inauguration of the new court of appeal in Malindi.

Officials of the Mombasa Law Society of Kenya boycotted the function arguing that they have been sidelined over the location of the Appeals Court.

Mombasa LSK branch chairman Mr Erick Nyongesa said Coast based lawyers had no business attending the launch because they oppose the court’s location in Malindi, favouring Mombasa instead.

“We did not attend this function because we have not been told clearly why the Court of Appeal was not brought to Mombasa,” said Nyongesa in Mombasa yesterday.

Nyongesa argued that the Judiciary Service Commission JSC which recommended the location of the court in Malindi should rent a building for it Mombasa until a permanent solution was found.

Meanwhile Mutunga said the high court judges who do not have many pending cases will be deployed to other busy stations during the vacation period.

He said areas with huge back log of cases in the country where the judges will be posted during the vacation period include Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, Mombasa and Meru.

The CJ also directed the court registries to prepare a cause lists of cases that had been pending for long and send out notices to all parties involves.

He said the exercise was meant to show the Judiciary’s commitment to deliever Justice within a short period of time.

Lawyers led by their National Chairman Mr Eric Mutua lauded the move.

The Chief Justice said the high court had so many challenges since the hearing of elections petitions begun only 14 judges were left to deal with the other cases as the rest were handling various petitions countrywide.