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The Judiciary has enabled the unlocking of Sh33 billion through the use of mediation to resolve disputes, Court of Appeal judge, Justice Aggrey Muchelule said yesterday.

Speaking in Nyahururu, Laikipia County during the launch of Court Annex Mediation, the judge who is the vice-chair of the Mediation Task Force, said billions of shillings are held up by court cases that remain unresolved.

The Court of Appeal Judge gave an example of a case involving the late Mbiyu Koinange’s family, which has been in court since 1981.

“As long as that case remains unsolved, the wealth of that family remains locked,” said Muchelule (pictured centre).

According to him, only 10 per cent of disputes end up in court while the rest are solved at various levels either through churches, chiefs or the police.

“Even with the 10 per cent, the Judiciary is bogged down due to lack of enough personnel. We have about 700 magistrates and 200 judges serving 50 million people. We can’t be able to resolve the cases in time,” Muchelue said, and urged litigants to embrace mediation to save time and money.

The country, he said, has 1,300 accredited mediators, 695 of them active.

Through the mediators, 15,600 cases have been handled with 14,000 of them resolved since the system of alternative dispute resolution mechanism was started in the country.

The Judge praised the Nyahururu LSK chapter chair Martin Waichungo for supporting mediation.

Muchelule said when the mediation debate was started in 2016, LSK was the biggest opponent since lawyers feared that the system would deny them business opportunities.