I don't understand why I have to pay the government to confirm that I have good conduct. It is actually the government that doesn't have good conduct if we're being honest.
I was handling a matter in Bondo Law Courts today.
My dad woke up quite early, went and sat physically in court - through about 60 matters - just to hear me address the JO
When the only route to your house passes through the home of the village witch, going through their compound is not a choice & neither does it make you a believer in their craft 😌.
When the Courts Go Digital but Justice Goes Offline, then we all have to be deeply concerned.
Something is deeply broken in Kenya’s judicial system—and it’s hiding behind the sleek façade of digital transformation.
Imagine this: You’re racing against the clock to file a critical legal challenge. You log into the Judiciary’s much-celebrated e-filing portal—promoted as a revolutionary step toward equal access to justice. But instead of a confirmation, you’re met with a blank screen. The system has crashed. Again.
The pattern is becoming far too suspicious to ignore.
A Convenient Inconvenience?
Take a recent example. On the very day, new IEBC commissioners were officially gazetted—when legal petitions were expected—the e-filing system mysteriously went down. The time? 4:30 PM. Precisely the hour when lawyers would be scrambling to file urgent court challenges.
Coincidence? So many advocates have called out these outages as deliberate “sabotage.” And the numbers back him up: the system reportedly has a staggering 50% failure rate. Let that sink in—half the time. The engine of judicial access simply does not work.
Here’s the nightmare scenario: The e-filing system fails. Lawyers try to file documents physically, only to be told that such filings are no longer accepted. They go back online, only to wait endlessly for the system to “recover.” It’s a bureaucratic merry-go-round designed to wear down even the most persistent advocate.
In the meantime, deadlines pass. Cases are delayed. Rights are denied.
This isn’t about privileged lawyers facing inconvenience. The real victims are ordinary Kenyans: citizens trying to challenge unlawful evictions, protest illegal detentions, or hold the state accountable. These are small farmers defending ancestral land, women seeking protection orders, and whistleblowers calling out corruption.
For them, the court is often the last line of defence. But when that line is blocked by silent errors and spinning loading wheels, what remains of justice?
The judiciary once promised that in times of technical failure, alternative filing methods—like email or in-person delivery—would be available. But in practice, these safeguards are either inaccessible, unknown, or hopelessly tangled in red tape.
These failures aren’t occurring in a vacuum. Kenya is at a historic crossroads. A new generation of Kenyans is rising—digitally savvy, politically alert, and no longer willing to accept opacity as the cost of doing business with the state.
Yet at precisely this moment of awakening, our courts appear increasingly inaccessible. And one cannot help but ask: Who benefits when justice becomes a technical impossibility?
If one wanted to shield controversial decisions from legal scrutiny, what better method than to “accidentally” pull the plug on access to justice?
The judiciary must act decisively. This is not just a matter of system upgrades—it’s a constitutional crisis in the making. Specifically, the @CJMarthaKoome should:
1. Commission an independent technical audit of the e-filing platform
2. Establish reliable and fast-acting backup filing options
3. Ensure real-time transparency on downtimes and scheduled maintenance
4. Amend court rules to prevent citizens from being trapped between digital and physical red tape
5. Invite external oversight—especially during politically sensitive periods—to restore public trust
Digital innovation was meant to open doors, not close them. We demanded e-filing to eliminate corruption and delays—not to create new forms of gatekeeping. If Kenya’s digital courts become a convenient excuse to deny justice at crucial moments, then we are not witnessing reform—we are witnessing regression.
Access to justice is not a luxury. It is a right. And no Kenyan should be locked out of that right by a failed login.
@LawSocietyofKe@FaithOdhiambo8