Where’s Willy? Swift justice is a relative term

In recent coverage, Dr. Willy Mutunga has promised the people of Nairobi to “rebrand” the Kenyan justice system’s reputation. The chief justice has confirmed in interviews that the judiciary loses 60% of its revenue through corruption (but then, who, literally, is counting?). From court clerks who take bribes to paralegals who make files disappear, from compromised magistrates to judges who delay cases for years, Willy has his work cut out for him. None of which is much consolation for victims, friends and families who deserve more immediate resolution in their cases – cases where the defendants seem to have more rights and liberties than the aggrieved parties.

The fact remains that Willy’s judicial restoration is far behind the astounding backlog of cases and corruption that jam our court system from head to toe. Ah, but there are exceptions. Witness the commendable speed with which Elgina Bwire Oliacha, a self confessed Al-Shabaab member, was convicted and sentenced in just a few days in early November. One official wondered at why other pending cases couldn’t be tried that quickly. “In some cases, people seeking justice die even before their cases are heard and decided,”he admitted in a Nairobi-based newspaper.

For many of our citizens, rights to legal fairness in Kenya appear arbitrary, personally elusive and far from complete. Case in point: Justice Nicholas Ombija recently withdrew from proceedings in the 2008 murder case of Melitus Mugabe Were, the MP for Embakasi. His rationale? Frustration with constant delays in the proceedings and ran attempted cover up of DNA evidence, as well as “a lack of commitment from the State and from the investigating officer.” Due to the mistrial, the four suspects -- including James Castro Odera (alias Odhiambo G; see Necessary Noise on page 30) who, in July, was acquitted of violent robbery and aggravated sexual assault based on a similar “lack of evidence” – have a chance to start afresh with a new judge…nearly four years after Were lost his life.

Furthermore, the 23-year-old search for the assailants of Julie Ward, the British tourist killed in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in 1998, may be Kenya’s most embarrassing, if not one of its greatest, travesty of justice. A 28-year-old wildlife photographer, Julie’s dismembered and burnt body was found a week after her disappearance; she had been traveling on her own back to Nairobi. Since then, her father, John Ward, has campaigned tirelessly both here and abroad to identify the killers – to little or no avail.

Mr. Ward suspects a grand-scale cover-up by government officials to protect their reputations and big business: the tourist industry. (It is notable that, despite the obviously man-made injuries Julie suffered, Kenyan officials originally insisted that she’d been eaten by lions and struck by lightning.) Only Julie’s father – having spent nearly two million pounds on the investigation and made over 100 visits to Kenya -- has kept the case alive.

In 2004, Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi admitted, “The death of Julie Ward remains one of the unsolved mysteries of the era of President Moi.” Ahem, where’s Willy? Families lose a daughter or wife. A husband is assassinated on your doorstep. A sister is violently robbed and raped. Your son is stabbed, nearly to death, in Kibera. Or Karen. All of these cases would

be subject to the excruciating injustices, delays and corruption long prevalent in the Kenyan courts. Yet, a self-proclaimed Al-Shabaab terrorist from Somalia is behind bars within a matter of days.

Dr. Willy Mutunga, a renowned human rights activist, has pledged that per the new constitution approved in August 2010, he will comprehensively address the problems and challenges the judiciary is now facing. Kenya appears, Willy has admitted in the press, to be crying out for an overhaul if judicial reforms are to be realized. But these envisaged reforms are expected to take time. “I only have five years,” he has said. “To get it working might take ten or more years to get Kenyans trusting in judiciary.” So, Nairobi, in dealing with the dark, witless past of our so-called justice system, how does Willy sleep at night? And, more to the point, where is he where is he when our kangaroo courts demand such extreme reparation?

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