By PRAVIN BOWRY
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012. Full page "Advertiser's Announcement" in the press by the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, shouting: 'What should a court in Kenya look like'?
The advertisement initiated a competition for innovative ideas on shape, colour, and layout of tomorrow’s courts. It even talked of where the courts will get their ‘air, light and water’!
Architects, students, designers, artists and ordinary Kenyans were told to join the ‘race to create Kenya’s courthouse’.
Novel thinking and utopian ideas must, however, be weighed against stark reality of today.
The Judiciary and administrative judicial officers owe it to Kenyans to consider infrastructural and allied problems before embarking on for wasteful thinking. Presently, matters of service delivery, efficiency, maintenance of all officers and their dedication to duty need more attention than physical layouts of courts.
Could the Registrar of the Supreme Court come down from the high pedestal and tell Kenyans how, when and by whom was the Eldoret court grabbed and what is the precise factual and legal position? Has the Judiciary recovered the plot?
If so, why no development has taken place and why the third Judge posted in Eldoret is housed in an old derelict building used at one time in our history as ‘African Courts’. The Registrar can also tell us why used containers are being used as judicial offices in Eldoret.
And what about the Mombasa Court of Appeal piece of land originally tagged for development for the highest court in the country, later grabbed by a developer possessing a title deed for the same plot, then the title revoked in favour of the Ministry of Lands.
And the Registrar might wish to tell us who built and operates the kiosk on the land right next to the courthouse! Oh, and how a High Court judge gave an injunction to the developer for the court land!
But let’s talk about some other mundane matters. What about clogged drains and weeds and even bushes growing in the drainages, massive leakages on the flat roofed courts, under the very noses of gardeners and snoozing messengers, and even helped by free labour force from convicted prisoners.
Move out into smaller stations and you will find abysmal working conditions.
And what about leaking water taps, missing cisterns and basins in toilets, and corridors and passages converted into impromptu exhibit stores? Maintenance and supervision alone in some stations and court houses can improve lives of the consumers of the justice machinery, whether litigants, accused, prosecutors, lawyers, law enforcing agencies, prisoners or the Judiciary.
There must be some machinery developed to deal with removing tons of chewing gum on the floors, or to repair grounded vehicles, or for the Judiciary to provide proceedings of decided cases in a week or so and not years to facilitate the appeal process. Who should be the one to prevent court clerks tweeting, face booking and using their mobile phones or playing games on the computers?
Dream and win
Most officers and magistrates still work without basic tools of trade such as up to date volumes of laws and reports, stationary, computers or libraries. Dispensation of justice on the devolved county government must be brought closer to citizens.
Lessons must be learnt from Garissa, a provincial headquarters which got its High Court 48 years after Independence. Hopefully the county government will and should add more meaning to the vision of the Judiciary.
I have no issues of looking ahead, but first and foremost let us keep our feet on the ground when there is a case for marked improvement in the presently available infrastructure.
Confining to matters of design, the Mombasa Court houses is a monument of disaster with dark corridors, no cross-ventilation, failed air-conditioning system mitigated by ugly and non-functional fans and risky wiring.
The Nairobi Milimani Commercial Court was outdated even before the paint had dried, and standard court design in stations like Kibera, Nyahururu and most other stations functionally a big failure. The new Nyeri courts and the court in Mariakani are a marked improvement.
Enough said, time to go dream and win Sh500,000 !
Wow! A court house with sparkling and operational toilets, even a gym, facilities for the handicapped, a sauna and steam bath, a subsidised cafeteria, a cyber cafÈ with a library where litigants and lawyers could work, parking next to the court, kindergarten for the kids of the employees, a sports complex and a jogging track and a football stadium for my favourite ‘Mahakamani’ team!
All this not only in Nairobi but in at least 47 counties. For divine intervention, small prayer houses for the faithful will be helpful all in the cause of justice! Vision 2030 here we come faster than the Thika superhighway and the Konza City!
The writer is a lawyer.
bowryp@hotmail.com