The ongoing wrangles between Nairobi County and the Judiciary over the control of City Magistrates Court have given officials from  the City Inspectorate a field day to harass and extort from hawkers.

On the other hand, hawkers have also taken advantage of the stalemate to engage the officials in a seek and hide game as they sell their wares.

Since the beginning of this month, city-magistrates’ courts have remained closed with all cases now being transferred to Milimani courts.

“The county pleas will now be taken to No.23 Milimani Law Courts by the County Magistrate pleas Court,” a notice by the Judiciary reads.

 Adding that, “Cash bail and fines will be paid at Milimani Law Courts after issuance of an invoice at the Milimani Law Courts County Registry counter.”

With the stalemate, law enforcement in Nairobi has become a tall order with both hawkers and inspectorate officers having a field day.

At the heart of the dispute is the revenue sharing formula between the two entities. A court orderly from the inspectorate department revealed that with stalemate Nairobi, has been losing close to Sh1. 5 million daily in terms of fines.

 “About 300 people are usually brought to this court daily. The fines imposed on the arrested is part of the revenue that helps manage this county. Unfortunately, we are losing this money to other loopholes, ”she said.

Increased corruption

A spot check done by People Daily revealed that the move has increased corruption between hawkers and the city-inspectorate officers.

Peter Macharia, a hawker along Ronald Ngala Street told People Daily that if one is caught on the wrong they usually negotiate with the inspectorate officers over the bribe to give.

“Before they would arrest us and arraign us in court but nowadays they just have field days. They pocket a lot from us since we have no fines,” he said.

Most of the enforcement officers are believed to be making random arrests even without authorization from their top bosses.

Last week, Governor Johnson Sakaja was forced to apologize to the street vendors after an ugly incident that took place where city officers were seen in running battles with traders for operating without the prerequisite documents.

“ We have had cordial relations with informal traders for the past one year but there have been unfortunate incidents in recent times to sabotage this,” said Sakaja.

The move to transfer the cases has been protested by public prosecutors who accused the Magistrate of implementing the changes without consulting them.

The prosecutors said the move has jeopardized the functioning of devolution since Nairobi County Assembly makes laws that govern day to day operations of the county.

Wrangles between the two date back in 2016 when counties and judiciary agreed on a formula for sharing revenue collected by city-court but this has never been implemented.

Mostly the city court deals with civil cases as opposed to criminal cases handled by other courts. They should deal with cases arising from bylaws, such as hawking in restricted areas, parking, vandalizing county property among others.

City prosecutors now argue that cases now transferred to Milimani will take time before they are concluded leading to increased rates of non-compliance. “ Will you start investigating a hawker? Some police cases take even 10 years,” a prosecutor spoke on condition of anonymity.

However, County Attorney Christine Ireri said there should be a clear way of how the two should share revenue.

In what could prolong the stalemate, Judiciary through the chief registrar Anne Amadi has remained hard saying that all courts are under judiciary thus its upon them to decide how they operate.

“ We manage all courts and we will continue doing so even in the future. We have not taken anyone’s court, they are under us,’ she said.