The apparent staffing woes facing the Judiciary spilled over to 2020 with Supreme Court judge Jackton Boma Ojwang set to proceed with his terminal leave on Sunday, January 5, prior to his impending retirement in February.
According to a report by the Daily Nation, the retirement will leave Chief Justice David Maraga with more troubles to handle as the highest court in the land will be left with only five judges.
Justice Ojwang will be proceeding with his retirement at the Supreme Court after his attainment of the stipulated age of 70 years.
The retirement means that the Supreme Court will be operating on the bare minimum of five judges including Chief Justice David Maraga, Mohamed Ibrahim, Njoki Ndung’u, Smokin Wanjala and Justice Isaac Lenaola.
The Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu cannot also sit at the Supreme court due to a court case filed against her by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A staffing crisis still exists at the Court of Appeal as three judges retired from service in 2019.
The appeal court was further faced by a major blow after the death of Justice Otieno Odek on December 16, 2019.
On November 4, 2019, the Chief Justice broke his silence over the woes facing the crucial arm of government in a long press conference where he decried disrespect and maltreatment by the Executive - an address that saw him threatening to boycott state functions.
Maraga illustrated how budget cuts imposed on the Judiciary had adversely affected service delivery countrywide while announcing that he would be partnering with Parliament to get the necessary allocations.
“Unless the budget cuts are reversed, we do not have money for fuel, we will not have mobile courts, we will not have the court of appeal circuits, we will not be able to pay for Wi-Fi for the e-filing and e-payments and plans to automate courts will halt," he stated.
On December 20, 2019, the Judiciary recalled all the Court of Appeal judges in Mombasa, Nyeri and Kisumu due to lack of enough judges in Nairobi.
According to the Court of Appeal President William Ouko, the court had been left with only 12 judges handling all cases filed.
"With this distribution, the court in Nairobi with nearly 3,000 appeals and applications can only mount two benches, a far cry from internationally accepted ratio," remarked Ouko as quoted by the People Daily.
