'Learned' in Latin, lost in reality: The strange case of Kenya's justice system

Courtroom language often distances justice from ordinary citizens.[File, Standard]

There is something almost theatrical, no, operatic, about the Kenyan courtroom. One expects, at any moment, for a robed counsel to rise not merely to submit but to perform, unleashing a volley of Latin so muscular it could frighten even the ghosts of empire back into their ships.

Obiter dicta! Ratio decidendi! Audi alteram partem! The phrases roll out like sacred incantations, less to illuminate justice than to fog it like incense in a cathedral where the congregation has forgotten the ritual but still kneels on cue.