Why war against crime is impaired

By Stephen Makabila                             

Kenya: The fight against crime is impaired by lack of harmony within the Criminal Justice System (CJS), stakeholders say.

The Second Annual Convention by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) in Nairobi earlier in the week attended by participants within East African Community (EAC) member countries, was told that Kenya’s security, law enforcement and justice agencies face serious capacity constraints.

These agencies, the convention heard, are underfunded, understaffed, ill-equipped and ill-trained to measure  up to the current  and emerging  security threats  and the increasing  sophistication  of modern day criminals.

“The fight against serious crime has been impaired by lack of effective  collaboration within our Criminal Justice System. Our Governance, Justice Law and Order Sector (GJLOS)  Agencies operate in  “silo” and often at cross-purposes,”  Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Keriako Tobiko told the convention.

Tobiko went on: “In the area of  investigation of crime, the lack of a functioning  national  forensic  crime  lab and forensic investigations skills have greatly hampered the ability  of the police to investigate complex crimes. This may explain partly  the huge  number of unresolved  crimes and acquittals.”

GJLOS is a sector-wide cross institutional reform programme led by the Government,  which seeks to institute reforms in governance, ethics and integrity including fighting corruption, enhancing access to justice, reforming the prisons and the police, among others.

 Key  institutions under  the CJS include the  Kenya Police Force, the Ethics and  Anti-Corruption Commission, Office of Director of Public Prosecution, the Judiciary, the Kenya Prisons Service, the Children’s Department, and the Probations and Aftercare Department.

 In an ideal situation, the CJS comprise an integrated system with different but interrelated roles. The output of one agency forms the input for another. The system comprises of the community, the police, the prosecutor, the judiciary, prisons and non custodial services.

 Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, Senior Solicitor General Muthoni Kimani and LSK chairman Eric Mutua were among some of the key participants at the convention.

The  Office of the DPP (ODPP), as per the ODPP Act 2013,  holds a national prosecution service convention  annually to discuss  strategic issues involved in prosecution  and for purposes of improving  the standards of prosecution and service delivery.

The question of disharmony in the CJS agencies was also aptly captured by  President Uhuru Kenyatta in  his recent  State of the Nation Address, when he noted: “Across our  criminal justice system­—from law enforcers, to our  prosecutors, the Judiciary and our correctional services­—there has been too little effective  collaboration.”

The President added: “Too many crimes have been improperly processed, leaving suspects  and culprits at large in our communities. The public frustration and anger that followed occasionally boiled over into mob justice. It serves  as a stark reminder  of the unacceptable lack of coordination in handling of crime.”

CJ Mutunga said the Constitution places the highest premium on values of the rule of law, public participation,  inclusivity, integrity, transparency and accountability and human rights and that the collective  summons of  the justice sector agencies was to promote  and secure these values.

“The vision of the National Council for Administration of Justice (NCAJ) is to establish a unified justice  sector that serves the people. At the heart of our mandate as council  members is the understanding that  our independence and our interdependence are mutually reinforcing. The delivery of justice is an assembly line,” he said.

However, Dr Mutunga said without requisite  financial, human and technical resources, the effective coordination of the administration of justice is impossible.

“Indeed, the realisation of Kenya’s socio-economic  rights  agenda  is directly predicated on the amount of  resources allocated to the institutions mandated with their delivery and the  health  of the justice system. The rule of law is fulcrum around which  the wheels of development turn. Mutunga cited the ODPP which he noted was making remarkable progress in the face of serious  limitations,” he says.

“With a 50 per cent staff shortage, DPP has managed to extend its services to 41 of the 47 counties. That is over 87 per cent national coverage with half manpower. However, the impact of this deficit  is not confined to the overworked staff of the ODPP but to the entire justice chain because it results in excessive  delays in  the conclusion of casestherefore weakening  the justice system,” added Mutunga.

He further cited the Probation and After Care Services, saying that the department had only received 62.59 per cent less than it requested in the current financial year, resulting in an impossible  operational  reality  where Probation officers  were entitled to Sh5,000 a station  for fuel for the entire year.