President William Ruto honoured his election promise of increasing funding to the Judiciary through budget allocation.
According to the Budget Policy Statement tabled to Parliament on Wednesday, March 15, President Ruto’s government increased the Martha Koome-led Judiciary's budget by Ksh3 billion.
This was in line with his campaign promise and a vow he made to the Judiciary while he was taking oath of office.
In the Budget Policy Statement that was tabled by Kiharu Member of Parliament Ndindi Nyoro who is the chairperson of the Budget and Appropriation Committee, the Judiciary will receive Ksh22.9 billion up from from Ksh19 billion in the 2022/2023 financial year.
On September 13, 2022, after being sworn in, Ruto revealed that he would be making an annual increase of Ksh3 billion to the Judiciary.
"To consolidate the place of the judiciary in our constitutional and democratic dispensation, my administration will respect judicial decisions while we cement the place of Kenya as a country anchored on democracy and the rule of law.
"Our campaign for the financial independence of the judiciary has paid off with implementing the judiciary fund on July 1 this year. My administration will scale up the budgetary allocation to the judiciary by an additional Ksh3 billion annually for the next five years," he promised.
This means that the Judiciary will receive Ksh26 billion in the next financial year and by the time the President’s first term ends in 2027, the Judiciary will be receiving a budget allocation of Ksh35 billion.
On November 2019, former Chief Justice David Maraga decried that former President Uhuru Kenyatta was starving the Judiciary by slashing funding.
This was after the Judiciary was allocated 18.9 billion shillings instead of the requested Ksh33.3 billion.
“A number of critical processes in the courts and the judiciary will be severely crippled,” Maraga complained back then.
The relationship between Uhuru and the Judiciary soured in September 2017, when the Supreme Court, under Maraga as Chief Justice, nullified presidential elections.
In response, the former president vowed, “We shall revisit this thing. We clearly have a problem. “Who even elected you? Were you? We have a problem and we must fix it.”
In the 2023/2024 financial year, the overall budget will be Ksh3.6 trillion of which Ksh700 billion will be raised through borrowing and Ksh48 billion will be raised through grants.
In the Ksh3.6 trillion, the Executive will be allocated Ksh2.1 trillion, Parliament Ksh40 billion, Auditor General Ksh7.6 billion.
The government went against its initial promise of awarding counties Ksh415 billion and it was revised to a lower amount of Ksh385 billion.
