Long judicial processes and understaffed courts are some of the reasons why most Kenyans have resorted to seek justice the traditional way.

A report by the Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHCR) shows that courts have ceased being dependable due to the huge backlog of cases. This has been compounded by the poor judge-population ration of 1:324,000 and magistrate-population ration of 1:97,000 which simply mean the judicial system is acutely understaffed against a population of 45 million persons.

Inadequate capacity

"If the Judiciary was to have no other case filed, it will take them three years to clear the backlog at its current capacity," noted KNHRC Vice Chair George Morara.

The backlog and inadequate staffing have seen council of elders take over to resolve cases that they are not even mandated by the law to handle but with high success rate.

These are murder charges, sexual offenses and abuse against children that the council of elders are said to have resolved, according to 8,580 cases submitted to the elders in 2014 across the 12 counties that were surveyed.

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