A review of the Judiciary has exposed deep staffing and management problems, including workers assigned duties that do not match their job titles, unclear reporting lines and uneven staffing across court stations.
The organisational review, launched under Chief Justice David Maraga, says the institution has too many overlapping job titles, weak job descriptions and a structure that allows different officers to do the same work while earning differently.
According to the report, some employees hired for security roles were performing administrative work, while others recruited for office duties were working as security personnel. It also says security guards were, in some cases, proof-reading court documents, assessing court fees and updating the court diary.
The review recommends a major restructuring of the Judiciary into 11 grades. Under the proposal, Grade One would be reserved for directors, the executive officer, the chief of staff in the Chief Justice’s office and the registrar in the office of the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary. Management staff would fall between levels one and six, while junior staff would be placed from level seven to 11.
At the bottom of the structure, level 11 would cover support staff responsible for general duties. Level 10 would include records assistants, supply chain management assistants, security guards, library assistants, clerical officer two, secretarial assistants or transcribers, and customer service assistants or telephone operators.
The report says five job grades would be removed from the current 16-grade system. It also links the proposed changes to earlier reform efforts, including those under Willy Mutunga, the 2003 Aaron Ringera Commission and the Sharad Rao-led Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board purge of 2011.
Maraga said no employee would be dismissed as a result of the changes.
“I am aware of the challenges in terms of implementation and the anxieties that such a change can bring. While the recommendations in the organisational review report will result in substantial changes in the institutional arrangements and structures in the Judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission, the changes have incorporated the entire current workforce of the Judiciary,” said Justice Maraga.
Under the proposed station structure, each judge would be assigned a court assistant, a law clerk or legal researcher, and a personal secretary, excluding the driver and security detail. Magistrates would have a court assistant and share a legal researcher and transcriber with other magistrates at the same station, at a ratio of one legal researcher to five magistrates and one transcriber to three magistrates.
The review also says the Judiciary is still struggling with digital readiness. Although Maraga has pushed for digitised court proceedings, the report says some staff, including judicial officers, do not know how to use a computer.
Beyond the staffing shortages, the report says the institution lacks clear role definitions and has too few workers in key areas. It notes that different cadres are doing the same work, including accountants in different job groups carrying out identical tasks despite different pay.
The report says the problem stems from the scheme of service, which allows job titles and occupants to overlap without regard to duties or output. It adds that progression is often based on years of service rather than performance.
Similar duplication was found in the human resources department, where HR officers one, two and three were said to perform the same role. HR assistants were also found across several job groups, while chief HR officers appeared in three different grades.
In some cases, the duties attached to a post did not match the role itself. A storekeeper, for example, was assigned contract negotiation and procurement work, while an accounts assistant carried heavy financial responsibilities.
The report further says some officers were serving in positions for which they lacked the required qualifications. One senior procurement assistant was said to have only a secondary school certificate, even though the post would ordinarily require at least a degree.
It also found that staff are frequently transferred without their titles being updated to reflect new responsibilities. In other cases, officers are deployed without regard to their job history or training, leaving some stations short of critical skills and others staffed by people doing work they were not trained for.
At the Supreme Court, the review says the reporting line for staff working under the Chief Justice is unclear. It also says there is no clear criteria for allocating staff to judges at the apex court, which has left some judges with more support staff than others.
The report singles out Chief Registrar Ann Amadi’s office as carrying a heavy administrative burden. It says she oversees nine directorates, six registrars and their staff, while also serving as secretary to the Judicial Service Commission, yet her office remains understaffed.
At the Court of Appeal, the report says there is no secretariat to support the presidency office headed by Justice William Ouko.
Some stations have more staff than needed. In Mombasa, the recommended number is 105, but the actual workforce stands at 157. The report also lists excess staff in Kakamega by 43, Nakuru by 45, Eldoret by 52 and Meru by 35.
Other courts are understaffed, with the Khadis’ courts described as the most affected. The High Court, meanwhile, is said to face uneven staffing and skills distribution, no proper way of measuring performance and too few deputy registrars.
The review comes against the backdrop of earlier Judiciary reforms in 2003 and 2011, but its findings suggest the institution still faces basic structural and human resource problems.
