Judges clear 10,000 cases in marathon

A case in which one of the Armenian brothers accused of being mercenaries sued former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was dismissed after the two parties involved in the legal dispute failed to show up.

The case is one of the 15,000 that the Judiciary wants to clear in two weeks.

By Friday, it had cleared 10,000 cases.

Names of prominent lawyers who dominated the corridors of justice up to the early 1990s’ also resurfaced last week.

One epic case was a dispute filed by Mr King’ori Gachoro who sued his business partner, Ms Wanjiru Kamau, on December 28, 1969 for taking over the running of the business while he was indisposed, yet they had agreed that all the proceeds from the business be shared on a 50-50 basis.

Court documents seen by the Nation show that prominent lawyers, among them the late S M Otieno and J M Kapila battled it out in the case that was last heard in court in 1993. Several years after some of those involved died, the case is yet to be concluded.

It was being heard for the first time after it last appeared in court in 1993. But even last week, no one turned up. Even the lawyer who had been served by the court did not show up.

But unlike the thousands of cases that were dismissed, Deputy Registrar of the High Court Anthony Ndung’u said the parties had been given up to March 12 to show cause why the case should not be terminated.

“We issued notice on February 24 for all the parties to appear. The plaintiff was sent a letter through a postal address that was listed in the court documents,” said Mr Ndung’u.

But Mr Odinga’s case was dismissed.

DEFAMATION

The dismissal of the case by High Court Judge Luka Kimaru now puts to rest the ghost of the Artur brothers who made a sensational entry into the country.

In the case filed in 2006, Artur Margaryan accused Mr Odinga, then the Liberal Democratic Party leader, of defamation.

The file was among cases that the Judiciary has been seeking to either conclude in the shortest time possible or dismiss, in a move aimed at clearing the backlog in the courts.

It is one of the 15,000 old cases that the Judiciary wants to dispense of in an exercise dubbed Justice@last.

The initiative started on Monday last week, with 14 High Court judges drawn from various stations in the country tasked to clear about 3,000 cases every day at the Milimani High Court.

Mr Margaryan and his brother Artur Sargsyan hit the headlines in 2006 after they bragged of their connections in the government.

There were allegations that they were mercenaries and their conduct was discussed in Parliament.

The brothers were deported in June 2006 after a gun drama involving them at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.

Mr Margaryan had, at some point, offered to withdraw the defamation case against Mr Odinga.

“If you are apologetic any time (sic), I am ready to withdraw the case and forgive you,” he told journalists at a press conference in his Runda home in April 2006.

On Tuesday, High Court Judge Anthony Murima dismissed a case between Mau Mau Original Trust and Mau Mau war veterans filed in 2004, to determine who the bona fide freedom fighters were after it emerged that the British Government was preparing to pay reparations to victims of atrocities perpetrated by the colonial government.

Justice Murima terminated the case after the two parties failed to appear in court to show cause why it should not be dismissed.

The week-long clearance has exposed the frustrations the public goes through to access justice, leading to a number of them abandoning their cases.

But even those whose cases were not listed on the cause list of 15,000, found their way to Milimani Law Courts in the hope that they would be given a hearing.

A small-scale Nyandarua farmer has been battling with Kisumu East MP Shakeel Ahmed Shabir for 15 years, over the sale of a tractor.

Mr Samuel Musaa Ndolo is seeking recovery of his tractor in good condition or compensation of Sh2.2 million from Nashack Kenya Ltd, a company owned by Mr Shabir.

Mr Ndolo, who bought a Massey Fergusson tractor in 1996, says he has been frustrated since he filed the case in court.

13 MAGISTRATES

The case has been handled by 13 magistrates, some of whom have been appointed judges and “he has never received justice due to corruption in the Judiciary”.

Mr Musaa, who appeared before the 14 judges appointed by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga to clear over 15,000 old case was told his case would be listed before any judge to determine it.

In a letter to the CJ, Mr Ndolo accuses the MP’s lawyer of working in cahoots with clerks in the Judiciary to alter court orders.

In 2004, retired Magistrate Abdul El Kindy ordered the MP’s company to pay Mr Ndolo more than Sh492,000  plus interest.

The same order was confirmed by two other magistrates in 2005 and 2014.

Mr Ndolo paid the company over Sh492, 000. The total purchase price was Sh525, 000.

The terms of the agreement were that the tractor would be released to the farmer after he paid more than Sh300, 000.

In November 4, 1999, the tractor was repossessed from him when he owed the company only Sh33,000. However, he claimed that the amount was forged to read Sh330,000.

STRANGER

But in his defence Mr Shabir says he does not know the farmer.

“The plaintiff (Ndolo) is a stranger to me. I have never dealt with him in my individual capacity,” Mr Shabir says in his defence.

He further says the plaintiff is abusing the court process and therefore, the case he has lodged is “frivolous and malicious and intended to embarrass” him.

But magistrates ruled that Mr Ndolo had proved the case against Mr Shabir’s company.

A survey, undertaken by the Judiciary’s Performance Management Directorate, found that the court system has a load of 426,508 cases. The case backlog stood at more than one million in 2011.

The initiative borrows heavily from lessons on case management acquired during the disposal of election petitions and two service weeks that saw the courts clear 5,187 cases in a fortnight.

The first phase of the project concentrated on the civil division, which had the highest number of pending cases.

Dr Mutunga said the second phase of the initiative will focus on the Land, Family, Commercial, Judicial Review, Criminal and Constitutional divisions of the High Court at Milimani. The court has been hearing about 3,000 cases a day since the initiative began on Monday.

By Friday, more than 10, 000 cases had been dismissed.