Kenyans paid Sh1.125 billion in fines, Sh847 million in court fees

Meru, Eldoret, Nakuru and Nairobi lead in the number of murder cases filed in court this year.

A report on areas prone to crime nationwide shows in total, 250,864 criminal cases were filed at magistrate courts.

At least 1,225 murder trials began in High Courts across the country, according to the State of the Judiciary and Administration of Justice Report.

Nairobi, Eldoret, Nakuru, Meru, Kericho, Mombasa, Murang’a, Naivasha and Kitale accounted for the majority of the cases related to murder, traffic offences, creating disturbance, drunk and disorderly.

Of the 1,225 murder cases, most of the cases filed this year are in Meru (111), followed by Eldoret (102) while Nairobi and Nakuru had 91 cases each.

The High Court in Kisumu had 36 murder cases, Bungoma (31), Migori and Busia had 22 and 16 cases respectively.

The penal code prescribes death penalty upon conviction for murder but the Supreme Court last week ruled the mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional.

Judges directed Parliament to review the law and ordered fresh sentencing for at least 7,000 prisoners on death row.

However, most of the cases relate to traffic offences (87,152), followed by creating disturbance (32,528) and 28,336 for being drunk and disorderly.

Nairobi is the most notorious with traffic offenders with 23,016 cases recorded this year. The capital city is served by Milimani, Makadara and Kibera courts.

Rogue motorists have also taken over Mombasa Town, which recorded 6,106 traffic cases. Nakuru and Naivasha had 5,553 cases on traffic violations.

On the flip side, there are parts of the country where no one was arraigned over traffic offences. This include Tononoka, in Mombasa with Malindi recording only one case. Sirisia, in Bungoma County, had only 45 traffic cases this year.

The court document also discloses that Nairobi, Murang’a and Kericho have the highest number of people appearing in court for creating and disturbance.

In Nairobi, Makadara law court had the highest number of cases (1,984) followed by Kericho (1,222) and Murang’a (1,055). Kisumu Town had 141 cases while Siaya had 77 cases. Nyando had 60 cases only.

Eldoret, Nairobi, Kitale and Kericho are areas with highest number of cases of being drunk and disorderly.

With 2,469 cases, Eldoret had the highest number of such cases this year followed by Nairobi where Kibera and Makadara law courts recorded 1,439 and 1,150 cases respectively. Kitale had 949 cases while Kericho had 947.

Other areas with fewer cases were Siaya (299), Kisumu (124) and Nyando (98).

Kilifi and Engineer in Nyandarua recorded six cases of being drunk and disorderly.

Majority of children arraigned for stealing came from Nairobi, Kilgoris, Kandara, Gichugu, Mombasa Town and Butere. Nariobi had eight cases while the rest had three cases each.

Rarely charged

A scrutiny of the report also discloses that there are offences that Kenyans are rarely charged with. In the whole country, only one person was charged with disobedience, that was in Machakos.

Section 131 of the Penal Code creates the offence of disobeying lawful orders and it attracts two years imprisonment.

“Everyone who disobeys any order, warrant or command duly made, issued or given by any court, officer or any person acting in any public capacity and duly authorised in that behalf, is guilty of a misdemeanour and is liable, unless any other penalty or mode of proceeding is expressly prescribed in respect of the disobedience, to imprisonment for two years,” the law reads.

The report reveals courts collected more fines than fees in the last one year.

Kenyans paid Sh1,125 billion in fines and Sh847 million in court fees.

However, there was a drop in fines collected compared to 2015-2016 when Kenyans paid Sh1.47 billion in court fines.

Kenyans in Nairobi, Mombasa Town, Naivasha, Thika and Eldoret contributed most to the fines basket.

In Nairobi, Milimani Law Court collected Sh129 million, Kibera Sh63 million and Makadara Sh31 million. The newly created court Jomo Kenyatta International Airport collected Sh19 million.

In Momabsa Town, Sh66 million was collected as fines while Naivasha raised 41 million.

In Eldoret, the court collected Sh36 million while Thika collected Sh33 million.

The courts also had Sh4.36 billion held cash for those who had been bailed for different offences.

In terms of land titles, log books, pay slips and travel documents, the court had Sh4.30 billion in its accounts.

The report shows the Judiciary would have collected more in fines were it not for technological challenges in some areas. Some Judicial officers were also said to have given lower fines during the year.

“Sometimes the court fines are too low compared to the crime committed by the suspects,” the report reads.

During the same period, the courts convicted 30,196 men, which was slightly higher than 30,160 in 2015/ 2016.

The number of women who were convicted this year was 1,651 lower compared to 2, 177 the previous year.

There is a further 18,501 other male suspects in jail awaiting their day in court. Women waiting trial are 1,352.

“Overcrowding continues to place a huge burden on the management, control and rehabilitation of prisoners. In addition, the service is currently holding a significant number of offenders charged with and/or terrorism related offences, including violence extremism, cybercrime and other transnational crimes which pose a gross security threat,” the reports reads.