By Standard reporter
Nairobi,Kenya:The mandate of the Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Board needs to be extended after the additional period it sought and was given by the Tenth Parliament ran out on March 28.
The board is engaged in an important and noble exercise under powers granted it by law to vet judges and magistrates. This process is part of efforts to clean up the Judiciary, and began with the vetting of judges.
Reasonable time
It is critical that the Eleventh Parliament speedily extends the board’s term. However, it is equally necessary that this time around, such an extension be reasonable given the workload facing the board, which has to interview 350 magistrates.
The latter are key to the process of judicial reform. Magistrates are the first port of call for those seeking justice in the courts of law.
Naturally, therefore, their courts also account for the highest number of complaints by litigants over alleged corruption and other unethical acts deemed to block access to justice through unfair rulings and so on.
While there has been much praise for the Judiciary as an example of ongoing reforms, truth is that unless the vetting of magistrates is completed, the work is only half done.
The process of vetting is not a wholesale condemnation of magistrates and judges, but rather a process under which everyone is given a chance to pass or fail the litmus taste of suitability for the job.
The manner in which the Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Board has conducted its business in the public eye has done much to demystify the Judiciary. This is an important step since various reports in the past all agreed that the public perceived the Judiciary as one of the most corrupt institutions in Kenya.
Slow justice
Delays of cases and the high cost of litigation are deterrents to respect for the rule of law. At the Kibera Law Courts in Nairobi, for instance, many criminal cases are yet to be heard and determined over one year after they were filed.
There are also question marks over the manner in which some magistrates run their courts, allowing lawyers and prosecutors to continuously push back hearings of cases on flimsy grounds, without due regard to the interests of victims, especially in criminal cases. Judicial reform is critical to restoring the integrity, credibility and independence of public institutions in a general sense.
It would be great if all vetting of State officers were held in public.
Unfortunately, some vetting authorities have set bad precedents by barring media from their proceedings, thus creating unnecessary suspicion that not all is above board.
Unlike the radical surgery of 2003 that was discriminative and discredited, the current exercise of vetting magistrates and judges gives the affected judicial officers sufficient notice and a chance to defend themselves against any allegations of improper conduct.
All judicial officers derive their authority from the people and must, therefore, use their offices to administer justice to all, irrespective of their status, and do so without delays or succumbing to procedural technicalities.
