This archive report was first published on 7 May 2020.
On May 6, 2020, Chief Justice David Maraga received a donation of computers from the European Union to the judiciary and other agencies in the justice sector at the Supreme Court building.
During the event, the Chief Justice revealed that 7,000 judgments had been delivered by various courts in the country during the COVID-19 era through the use of technology.
He attributed the success to the pandemic, which had pushed the Judiciary to step up efforts to embrace technology, and pointed out that it has also exposed its readiness to upscale processes.
“The use of technology in dispensation of justice has since proved an invaluable channel through which we can carry out operations in the justice sector during this period of scaled down court operations,” he said.
However, lawyers under the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) have expressed concerns over the quality of rulings made during this period, criticizing some of the judgments issued on these platforms as lacking in-depth legal research.
LSK President Nelson Havi raised questions over judges and magistrates' access to court files, stating that the manner in which the judiciary is handling this is poor.
“Judges and magistrates are writing decisions from their own handwritten notes, from submissions filed online and not what was already in the court file. So the content and jurisprudential value of these judgments is doubtful,” he added.
