Judiciary out of limbo as Treasury restores funds

What you need to know:

  • On Monday, CJ Maraga accused the National Treasury of unfairly targeting courts in its austerity measures as budgets for Parliament and the Executive keep growing.

The National Treasury on Thursday restored funding to Judiciary’s budget for the 2019/2020 financial year.

Anne Amadi, the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, said all approved activities for the Judiciary will proceed as planned.

The move came three days after Chief Justice David Maraga went ham on the Treasury in a televised address for what he termed a plot to frustrate his office and its operations by slashing funds.

He accused the National Treasury of unfairly targeting courts in its austerity measures as budgets for Parliament and the Executive keep growing.

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) had in October moved to court to protest Treasury’s proposed 50 percent cut of the Judiciary’s budget in drastic measures to reduce government recurrent expenditure.

LSK warned the move would result in a paralysis of Judiciary operations across the country. A concern reiterated by the CJ during his fiery Monday address which served to highlight how dire the situation was.

The organisation had raised concerns the cut would derail the progress made by the Judiciary in clearing the existing backlog of cases and slow down normal operations.

Justice Makau Mutua on October 29 ruled in favour of LSK and the Judiciary, issuing an order restraining Treasury from implementing the September 24 circular subject to a review of a report tabled by LSK show how the cost-cutting had  affected the dispensation of justice.