Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Everlyn Olwande who is also a member of the Judicial Service Commission has said Bungoma County needs more law courts established to enable residents access the services nearer.
Addressing the media at Bungoma law courts, the Commissioner said Bungoma has nine Constituencies yet only four have courts hence the need to establish more.
She added that earlier they met Governor Ken Lusaka who agreed to donate a piece of land for the construction of a modern court at Musikoma in bid to reduce a backlog of cases currently being experienced in Bungoma.
The delegation led by the Secretary of the Judicial Service Ann Hamadi expressed concern over lack of enough land to put up more court rooms.
Olwande noted that the visit by JSC committees in the Kenya courts is to ensure effective administration of justice, adding that the committees have been split whereby one team is covering the Western part and the other in the Eastern region.
In addition, she revealed that the visit also aims at engaging with the court users both internally and externally and identify the challenges faced during the administration of justice.
“During our tour engagement with the officials at Bungoma law courts we have discovered that the main challenge is that the court rooms sits on a small piece of land and there cannot be an expansion,” she noted, adding that because of the challenge of space the commission cannot bring in more judicial officer because of limited space,” she said.
Magistrate Olwande added that the commission will initiate conversations with funders who will facilitate the construction of the court.
She noted that the area Governor committed to support the process of setting up courts in other Sub Counties saying that Kabuchai being a priority area, adding that the Commission also engaged with the Governor on access to justice and agreed to support multi- door approach program.
“We are also exploring other methods of dispensation of justice, what we call the ADR,” she said
Olwande said that historically the Judiciary has always had challenges with funding, the Judiciary gets unfair share from the national revenue.
She said that currently, the Judiciary is pushing for the allocation of 3 percent of the national budget noting that at least it will help address the challenges in the judicial systems.
