Bid to prosecute every case will leave egg on the face of prosecutors

Last week was Judiciary bashing week. While the complaints about the Judiciary have generally tended to involve Jubilee politicians, this time, Raila Odinga also joined the fray. At the Multisectoral Forum of corruption he echoed complaints by attendants that the Judiciary was sabotaging the anti-corruption war. The consensus appeared to be that the Judiciary was taking an unduly accommodating approach to the corrupt to the chagrin of, among others, the indefatigable DPP and DCI.

If judges and magistrates were not issuing pre-arrest injunctions, they were giving friendly bail terms thus were making a mockery of the war on graft. The Judiciary was also said to be delaying cases and ultimately acquitting accused persons. As a legal practitioner who has spent the last thirty years with largely honest, well-intentioned but long suffering judicial officers, my instinctive reaction is to dismiss the complaints lodged against the Judiciary. But I have to accept that not all complaints are totally without foundation.