Embrace Alternative Justice Systems To Reduce Case Backlog- Dennis Mikoyan

The Eldoret Chief Magistrate has urged the North Rift residents to embrace Alternative Justice resolution mechanisms in order to reduce a huge backlog of cases.

Speaking to the press Dennis Mikoyan said the court has 27000 pending cases which are supposed to be solved by 10 magistrates and that the process might take longer for the cases to be resolved.

” The Policy from the judiciary is that a matter since the day its filed should be heard and determined within one year but yes there is a room that should not exceed two years, we have old cases many are under the Family Division, that’s succession cases, Land disputes among other cases that take up the large portion of the 27,000 cases”, said Mikoyan.

He added that cases have been piling up due to the high workload that supersedes the magistrates but they are trying to conclude them in a time bound not exceeding 2 years.

“Cases are many and they are still piling up which is giving pressure on magistrates since they are many but we consider completing these cases in a time, not over 2years”, said Mikoyan.

However, Mikoyan said the most common cases are family divisions most resulting from land disputes.

“We have a number of cases but the most common ones are the family divisions and this entails family disputes like those of land disputes among others”, said Mikoyan.

He says thye are in the process of coming up with mechanisms to unlock those piled cases by solving them outside the court.

“We are coming up with measures and processes to unlock those piled cases and in this manner, we embrace cases to be sorted and solved outside the court”, said Mikoyan.

Manager in charge of Customer care John Kasango said the backlog of cases can be solved through alternative ways that are solving them outside the court.

“We as the customer care staff call upon the public to consider solving cases outside the court. We will provide a mediator that will look into those cases keenly by engaging the public and serving them”, said Kasango.

In Kenya according to the law society of Kenya(LSK), many cases have been extensively delayed after the suspects filed the cases at the High Court, Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court which obtained several orders along the way.