Chief Justice Martha Koome has revealed that she will adopt the bottom-up approach in an attempt to speed up service delivery at the Judiciary.
Speaking during the second annual Tribunal's Symposium, the soft-spoken CJ noted that the approach is in tandem with her vision of making the Judiciary efficient in the delivery of services running from the 19 Magistrates, Kadhi's Courts, Tribunals, Superior Courts all the way to the Apex Court.
She noted that the experience a litigant should have before the Supreme Court should be the same across the board in all the courts below.
What this means is that every court station will strive to be a center of excellence in the delivery of justice and it is not only the Apex Court or Superior Courts that should strive for excellence.
"The Bottom-Up approach in expeditious delivery of service will demand that we take certain interventions and measures in consultation with all judicial officers. We should allow court stations to innovate unique 21 interventions such as their own case management systems that improve their efficiency in service delivery.
"This means we will embrace shared leadership, meaning each judicial officer will be encouraged and supported to innovate and adopt measures to increase his or her efficiency in collaboration with the court users," she noted.
She further noted that she would seek to increase the working hours of the Judiciary to clear all the backlog cases.
"We hope to see innovations in time which could include the Commercial Courts and the 22 Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Courts adopting “night court” shifts i.e. court sittings between 5.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m., to ensure that their performance and resolution of cases in real-time.
"The end result should be that no court case should stay in a trial court beyond a timeline of three years and an appellate court beyond one year," she added.
Justice Martha Karambu Koome was sworn in as the country’s new Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court of Kenya on May 21, 2021, at State House.
That followed a lengthy interview session in which over 13 justices had applied to take over the office following the retirement of Justice David Maraga.
She had earlier vowed to upend the relationship between the Judiciary and other arms of government.
