It's time to re-examine our courts and their officers

A toad does not run in the day for nothing, said Chinua Achebe in his world famous novel, Things Fall Apart, published in 1959. The toad didn’t run during daytime for nothing then, and it believably doesn’t now. So anytime you see that amphibian frog-jumping at midday and you are an animal lover, pose to find out what could be after its life. Look around keenly to be sure you establish the source of the “clear and present” danger to the creature’s life and, depending on how much value you attach to the toad vis-à-vis the threat, smash it.

That is what Kenyans should start contemplating at this time in history. The nation should, in earnest, start looking out for visions within it of nocturnal elements running around during the day, establish the sources of threats to their dear lives and take the necessary actions to eradicate the danger. If we don’t, we may be putting our collective life as a nation in danger.

And there are precedents for this self-preserving, self-evaluation.

BLOOD

A few years ago, precisely 2007, the country was virtually killing itself in what was infamously labelled extra-judicial killings by rogue officers in the security agencies. Hundreds of young and not-so-young Kenyans were “arrested” and terminated in the various killing fields spread across the country. What had started as a noble fight against organised criminal gangs soon morphed into an all-consuming ogre feeding on human flesh and drinking the blood of the very Kenyans it had been created to protect! Some villages started reporting complete absence of members of a certain age bracket and it became apparent that a people could soon become extinct if something wasn’t done urgently.

The civil society, politicians and ordinary villagers began running in the day like the fabled toad. It is then that the idea of police reforms and vetting was mooted and a process of ridding the then force of blood-sucking officers started. Though we are not yet there, there is hope that the Kenya Police Service will stop ending and start preserving lives, with the collateral benefit of reduced bribe-demanding and -taking.

BRUTAL

During the operation, led by a special unit codenamed Kwekwe, there were justifiable arguments on why the killings needed to continue. There had been an upsurge of gruesome crime, especially in Nairobi and areas around Mt Kenya. Gangs, associated to the amorphous and thence outlawed Mungiki sect, had taken over lives of entire villages and estates in towns imposing their own governments complete with a tax system and “judicial” system to punish those considered rebellious. And their punishment was brutal! They could behead those who dared question their authority and present torso-less heads in the open as a lesson to others with similar intents. The country started crying for the seemingly lacking intervention of the State. John Michuki, the then no-nonsense minister of State for Internal Security, listened, warned the gangsters and shortly afterwards unleashed the “boys”.  But when Kwekwe came in, the situation went from bad to worse before the society begun ‘running in the day’ and turning the course in the right direction.

OUTCRY

Earlier, there had been some serious complaints about the country’s correctional system. Our prisons had been turned into death and lunacy centres where convicts were sent to die or get mad rather than reform and become better people. The prison warders had become a law unto themselves and convicts and remandees were getting other forms of convictions and remand terms than those imposed by the courts of law. The situation was getting out of hand until the public started “running in the day” and GJLOS (Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector) and Moody Awori happened. And prisons returned to the correctional units they had been intended to be.

And then there was the “radical surgery” of 2003! This was necessitated by an outcry over the corruption rot and stench in the judiciary built over time during the de jure then de facto single party system prevailing in the country from the late 60s to 1991 where the courts were appendages of the rich and the shilling determined the justice one got for far too long until the public begun running in the day and Mwai Kibaki and Aaron Ringera happened.

LENIENT

And now some segments of the public are running in the day again. Anti-terror agencies are complaining that the courts are too lenient to terror suspects arraigned before them. Police say hardcore criminals love it when they are arrested and taken to court because they have high chances getting free again and continuing with their trade of choice. Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i was recently on national TV lamenting how the government is getting frustrated by the courts. Then early in the week, a section of the press ran an extensive coverage of how some people have resorted to paying criminal gangs to resolve their cases and serve justice!

Isn’t time for another unorthodox intervention in the judicial system? Aren’t we ripe for a different form of radical surgery of the judiciary? 

Mr Cherambos is a social commentator based in Nairobi; [email protected]