Reviewing our justice system long overdue

When a chicken thief is presented to a Kenyan court, justice is swift and merciless. The poor fellow will find himself in Kamiti Maximum Prison counting the stripes on his prison garb.

If a mobile phone thief is caught in the streets of Nairobi, mob justice does quick work on him and he is left for dead. However, the thieves who steal billions of shillings face another form of justice in Kenya.

For the corrupt thief, the wheels of justice run slow, very very slow. The evidence is inadmissible, the bail low and the probability of conviction closer to nil. If the case is timed right, then it ends a year to an election and the mega thief can now run for office and settle into the buffet that is leadership in Kenya.

The corruption cases in Kenya are treated as if corruption is a myth. A fairy tale we tell young Kenyans so that they can lose hope in the future and fear the present.

In Kenya, the fact is money was stolen, but the justice system always affirms that someone called no one made away with the loot. There is never a conviction and the guilty are always sanitised; innocent once they appear before a Kenyan judge.

I say a Kenyan judge because as I have said, times beyond measure, that mega thieves are innocent in Kenya, but guilty in any other jurisdiction on the same evidence.

This is true for the Akashas, true for chicken gate and true for Kenya Power. It seems what would be an American gangster is a Kenyan hero.

In all this our judicial system claims total innocence, feigns ignorance and is mad at social media for portraying them as aides of the corrupt.

Let us examine the facts on record; criminals who have been convicted in other countries have confirmed that indeed they managed to obtain not guilty judgements by simply paying Kenyan judges.

All our judicial reviews have told us time and again that the Judiciary is corrupt. However, this is treated like a myth; a fable the President tells Kenyans, a figment of his imagination.

Land fraud

It is also a demonstrable fact that bail terms and court injunctions are used by criminals to defeat justice. This we know because some people get bail and servers are stolen from the lands commission, the same commission that is in charge of all land fraud in the past five years without consequence. In fact, the courts are party to the reinstating of many officials under investigation for fraud. The sheer absurdity of it all is akin only to a circus whose performers are drunk.

As if the wounds we suffer are not enough, the same fraternity of judges and lawyers are quick to defend each other whenever one of them faces arrest and charges in court.

The unholy cabal is ready and incredibly willing to claim all manner of loopholes to ensure one of their own never sees a day in the docks.

They will claim judicial independence, lawyer-client privilege and whatever else to ensure people who charge Sh200 million in legal fees to represent a broke county government never get to answer any questions.

It would appear to me that the learned friends are in an incestuous relationship with the judiciary and the blanket with which they cover their misdeeds is the blanket of judicial independence and constantly shifting blame.

Their tongues wax lyrical and philosophical. They will explain legal theory and process. Which would be fine only if it delivered results.

You see, any process that has a 90 per cent failure rate is not to be kept or praised. The Judiciary fails in convicting 90 per cent of criminals and they are happy with that and expect us to clap for them.

The process they so praise not only delivers the wrong results, it takes an eternity and a day to do so. Again, they see no wrong. A justice system that delivers no justice is a threat to the same rule of law they claim to maintain. They forget that the victims of these crimes will one day take justice into their own hands.

A word of advice to the legal fraternity- the Judiciary, the DCI and the DPP; we the people, really don’t care what complicated legal terms and theories you are fighting about.

Find ways

We really don’t care whether bloggers are hurting your fragile feelings by creating memes about you. We really don’t care how many degrees you have and how senior you are in your circles. We, the people, simply want to see justice served.

It isn’t rocket science; you do it so well with the chicken thief. If you would like, we can state the amount stolen in chicken numbers if that helps, all we want is the thief of billions in Kamiti next to the chicken thief, explaining how he was once rich but now the Government has recovered what he stole and his wife left him.

That is how justice is served. So, kindly stop extolling the virtues of your system when it has only theoretical value with no result at all.

The proof is in the eating and what you serve us every day is inedible and repulsive. Find ways of getting us justice or step down and let those who are willing to change from legal theory to practice take over.

Mr Bichachi is a communication consultant. [email protected]