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.
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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.