Kilifi County is set to have several mobile courts as an enhancement to aid in judicial processes.
This is one of the resolutions in this year’s Court Users Committee (CuC) meeting held at Silver Palm Hotel in Kilifi town.
Participants in the meeting headed by Malindi Resident Judge Stephen Githinji said that there was a need to have mobile courts, especially in rural areas so that the administration of justice can be eased.
Kilifi Deputy Governor Flora Chibule who also attended the meeting as one of its members said many cases like defilement and other sexual and gender-based cases have not seen justices because of several challenges like transportation of victims to Kilifi for the hearing of their cases from far-flung areas.
“In such instances, many miss court sessions and at the end, the cases are dropped. That is why as a county we thought it better if we can have these mobile courts to aid the dissemination of justice to the people,” she said.
The DG further said the county will allocate funds in the next financial year for the same program.
The resident judge who is the chairman of the caucus admitted that there are challenges in administering justice in some cases where victims are facing issues like transport to courts from far-flung areas.
“We have experienced several occasions where victims fail to reach on time for their cases because they are far away from either Kilifi or Malindi. That is why the idea of mobile courts comes in handy. We need it at this moment because it will reduce the backlog and make sure justice is done at the rural level without travelling,” he said.
Mtwapa Town and Bamba are going to be the first beneficiaries of this program when it takes off.
The caucus was supported by USAID through their Stawisha Pwani program.
