Maraga: It takes 1,235 days to resolve criminal case at Appeal Court

Chief Justice David Maraga on Monday revealed that it took longer to determine a criminal case at the Court of Appeal than it does at the High Court.

Speaking during the annual Judges and Magistrates conference in Mombasa, the CJ Maraga however noted that the reverse was true with civil matters.

The CJ noted that at the Court of Appeal, it takes an average of 1,235 days to resolve a criminal case and 727 days for a civil matter.

However, at the High Court, criminal matters take an average of 522 days while civil matters take 1,057 days.

He was explaining how the Judiciary was able to reduce the unresolved cases from the staggering number presented last year at the conference.

According to him, strategies such as service weeks and increased use of technology enabled the courts to resolve 86percent of the cases that were a backlog from over five years ago.

“As of June this year, the number of cases older than five years in all the superior courts – the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, the High Court, the Environment and Lands Court (ERC) and the Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC) had come down from 110,000 to 15,278,” he said.

“We were also looking at increased use of technology as a way of speeding up our work. While these are an improvement from last year, they are still not as good as they should be,” Maraga added.