100 magistrates take oath

Chief Justice Willy Mutunga has presided over the swearing in of 109 magistrates at the Supreme Court in Nairobi Wednesday.

The group is among 300 magistrates hired by the Judicial Service Commission.

The judicial officers will be posted to various stations across Kenya.

According to the Judiciary, the process of hiring new judicial officers is aimed at speeding up the delivery of justice, reducing case backlogs and making justice accessible to all Kenyans.

And in a change to tradition, the new magistrates will not require files to take proceedings in their courts after undergoing training on the use of technology and digitisation of court proceedings.

They will be using laptops to type proceedings.

Lack of adequate judicial staff has been a major concern for the slow delivery of justice especially in large jurisdictions which had only one magistrate.

The CJ has in the past said that the Judiciary will give priority to areas which are the most understaffed and those which have never had a running judicial station.

He added that there are plans to establish High Courts in each of the 47 counties and post judges to the stations.