CJ Maraga allows magistrates to handle labour disputes

Chief Justice David Maraga has allowed magistrates to hear labour disputes in order to ease the backlog of cases at the Employment and Labour Relations division of the High Court.

Justice Maraga, however, said only those in the rank of senior resident magistrate and above should handle the cases.

They will determine disputes arising from contracts of where an employee's gross monthly pay does not exceed Sh80,000, Justice Maraga said in a notice.

However, trade disputes under the 2007 Labour Relations Act are not included in the new directive.

Last year’s State of the Judiciary and Administration of Justice report indicated that there was a backlog of at least 6,931 cases at the Labour Court, dating back more than five years.

The report indicated that there were at least 13,723 pending cases.

There are six Labour Court stations in the country: Nairobi, Kericho, Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru and Nyeri.

The court also has sub-registries in Meru, Bungoma, Eldoret, Malindi, Machakos and Garissa.

Last year, the six judges gave rulings on 3,668 cases out of the 6,082 that were filed.

Justice Maraga’s directive means an additional work to magistrates whose courts had at least 366,133 pending cases, comprising 167,407 criminal matters and 198,728 civil ones.

Out of the 366,567 cases pending in magistrates’ courts, a total of 199,536 were classified as backlog.