Use alternative justice to cut case backlog, says DG
By KNA, March 26, 2024Embracing the Alternative Justice System (AJS) will reduce backlog of court cases and unlock billions of shillings held by financial institutions due to protracted litigation tussles between various parties.
Nakuru Deputy Governor David Kones has said with prison congestion, family wrangles, and business disputes escalating, Kenyans should resort to AJS whose positives included resolution in one or two sittings.
Kones noted that disputes that had been dragging before judges for decades revolved around assets and finances, which do not help families but only escalate wrangles.
Deputy Governor was speaking at his office when he hosted the National Steering Committee on Implementation of Alternative Justice Systems Policy (NaSCI-AJS) of the Judiciary. The committee, led by Court of Appeal Judge Justice Joel Ngugi, who chairs NaSCI-AJS also discussed preparations for the forthcoming 3rd Annual National Conference on Alternative Justice Systems in Kenya, which will be co-hosted by the Judiciary and County Government.
Chief Justice Martha Koome is scheduled to open the Conference which will be held at Nyayo Garden and will run from June 11 to 14.
Conference will bring together justice actors, practitioners, judicial officers, academics, policymakers, civil society actors, development partners, and all stakeholders in the access to justice ecosystem.
The AJS is a system that allows litigants in criminal and civil cases to resolve disputes outside the jurisdiction of courts through healthy negotiations. The system is not only supposed to resolve cases but mend broken relationships, as parties are given chances to express themselves without restrictions.
Kones said, unlike the court system, AJS ensures all parties win and get what they want. The AJS is an umbrella which comprises arbitration, mediation, consent agreements and blood money compensation, to resolve disputes.
Also present were County Legal Advisor Samuel Mungai, and Jemimah Aluda, head of the NaSCI-AJS Secretariat among others.
Kones noted that only 21 per cent of Kenyans have access to the formal justice system, and AJS was beneficial to the remaining 79 per cent. According to Justice Ngugi, the conference will be fulfilling one of the major objectives of the committee to rally all sectors of Kenyan social, religious, Judiciary, and cultural life to continuously and emphatically support AJS mechanism and expand the pool of individuals and groups accessing justice in Kenya.
Opposing parties
The AJS module, he pointed out, has a panel of at least three arbitrators who sit with opposing parties.
“The panelists include elders, prisons in charge, lawyers, religious leaders, and court officials among others. As of now, the panelists sit in the court’s jurisdiction,” noted Justice Ngugi.
Those in the panel get the root cause of disputes by hearing opposing parties vent, disagree, and offer solutions themselves. The panel gives advice and recommendations only. Justice Ngugi said the aim of the panel is not to decide on behalf of the parties but help them come up with their own solutions. He took note that in Nakuru alone, over 150 cases had been taken from courts and referred to the AJS since it was launched in 2021, with almost half of them resolved.
“A succession case that had been in court since 2006 was resolved in one sitting. Also, over 250 cases for sex workers and 400 disputes in the bodaboda sectors have been resolved,” said Ngugi at a previous event.
Unlike the court procedure that is strict, technical, complicated and rigid, Justice Ngugi said AJS has a vast way of resolving disputes. The AJS, he noted, ensures all parties win and reconcile after resolving disputes. The process is usually supposed to take six months.
In another case after 19 years in court, a Nakuru widow finally obtained the right to inherit part of her deceased father’s property. Ann Wanjiku had been fighting her eight siblings in court since 2003 until June 14, 2022, when Professor Ngugi, then High Court judge, referred the matter to the AJS.
After only one AJS session, the eight children of the late David Ndung’u agreed that Wanjiku, their sister, should inherit a significant share of their father’s property.
Furthermore, through the AJS, the anti-graft commission recovered a government housing property in Kericho worth Sh5 million.