Nairobi — President William Ruto's nominee for the State Law Office has promised to reform the criminal justice system in a bid to end perenial delays in courts.
Dorcas Oduor told the National Assembly Appoitments Committee on Friday that she would also reform the limitations around the rights of arrested persons in a bid to resolve the inequity between the rich and the poor.
"None of the people charged with corruption cases was in pretrial detention. It is only the poor," she told the panel chaired by House Speaker Moses Wetangula.
"They have no food, their cases take very long and most people who should be in custody are walking outside and most people who should be outside are in custody," Oduor explained.
She singled out instances where prosecutors using the Decision to Charge Guidelines and the Diversion Guidelines have diverted matters out of the criminal justice system to give non-custodial sentences including reasonable fines and warnings, as key intervensions during her term in the Public Prosecutor's office.
Oduor noted that despite the alternative policies to address such offences outside of the criminal justice system, it remains a growing concern that "profiling, over-policing and over-incarceration" still lead to mass arrests and incarceration of poor and vulnerable Kenyans.
"The decision to charge guidelines is supposed to regulate decision to charge so that pretty cases do not go to courts," she told the committee.
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"The diversion guidelines is supposed to attend to alternative to prosecutions because we realize that not everybody who is charged with an offense should go through the system,"she said.
Clogged Judiciary
Oduor told MPs that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) had initiated reforms, including prosecution training institutes and community dialogues.
She expressed that prosecutors have diverted cases but lack of enough structures to enhance rehabilitation services and counselling facilties to divert cases have impeded the ibtiative leading to clogging of cases at the Judiciary.
"Prosecutors are being accused of taking many cases to court. It is because we have initiatives but we need other structures of government to assist us to realize those initiatives," she remarked.
"We also found that most of our prosecutors have no capacity and therefore maybe we're making wrong decisions," Oduor stated.
The noted the justice is clogged due to petty crimes. She noted ODPP's decision to drop touting among chargeable offences.
"We found that traffic criminal cases are clogging the criminal justice sector. Most of the crimes that we arrest people for in the sector are petty, like not wearing a uniform and touting and it is for that reason that DPP directed that touting should not be charged," Oduor said.
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