The National Council on the Administration of Justice (NCAJ) convened for a crucial session to strategize against corruption, enhance accountability, and ensure efficient service delivery in Kenya.
Speaking during the Consultative meeting, the Chief Justice, Martha Koome said that Corruption has been persisting as a complex national challenge and a sustainability threat that requires joint effort to fight.
“Corruption continues to compromise public institutions and adversely impact service delivery and economic growth of the country because it also undermines and erodes public trust,” the chief justice said.
She acknowledged that work has been fully done, including policy, legal, and administrative reforms in the fight against corruption and enhanced accountability while appreciating that the justice sector plays a crucial role in preventing, investigating, prosecuting, and adjudicating corruption cases.
Koome reiterated the justice sector’s determination and ongoing dedication to intensifying efforts to address corruption and mitigate its negative effects on society. The Chief Justice noted that despite a series of critical interventions undertaken to combat corruption over time, the vice is evolving, hence the need for new approaches to address it.
“We are committed to improving our diverse but collective institutional cooperation mechanisms to address corruption and upscale practice imperatives to embed accountability in all our operations and functions,” she emphasized.
Resolutions include promoting collective leadership in fighting corruption, prioritizing system examination in justice agencies, and taking remedial measures to prevent corruption opportunities.
She noted that they had come up with resolutions which included: Galvanize collective efforts to provide strategic and focused leadership boldly and decisively in the fight against corruption, prioritize systems and processes examination in justice sector agencies to identify corruption risk areas, and take remedial measures to seal opportunities for corruption.
Resolutions include digitizing and automating processes, collaborating on traffic fine automation, and strengthening inter-agency collaboration to improve efficiency, accountability, and combat corruption. The speaker emphasized the need to enhance NCAJ’s coordination, improve arrests, investigation, prosecution, and trial processes, adopt efficient case management systems, and prioritize corruption and economic crimes cases.
Augment public engagement through Court user committees nationwide to address emerging challenges, rebuild public trust, and fast-track conclusion of anti-corruption cases at the grassroots level. “A framework and roadmap are needed to guide strategies for addressing corruption, enhancing accountability, and ensuring seamless service delivery, ultimately leading to a national anti-corruption conversation,” she said.
“We are mainly asking for inter-agency collaboration, cooperation, and coordination because no one agency can succeed in the fight against corruption, you need investigations, prosecution, and also the court that comes in to ensure that there is a fair and expeditious hearing,” she concluded.
By Fatma Said
