Chief Justice David Maraga on Monday revealed that the Court of Appeal takes longer to solve criminal cases than the High Court.
Addressing judges at the five-day annual Judges and Magistrates conference that started on Monday in Mombasa, Maraga noted that it takes longer to solve civil cases at the High Court than it takes at the Court of Appeal.
According to the CJ, it takes almost 1,235 days and 72 days to solve a criminal case and civil case respectively at the Court of Appeal.
The CJ pointed out that at the High Court, it takes approximately 522 days to solve a criminal case while a civil matters take an average of 1,057 days to be solved.
Maraga was explaining to judges how the judiciary managed to reduce the number of cases from last year.
Maraga told judges that the use of service weeks and increased use of technology helped a lot in solving the cases. Up to 86 per cent of the cases were dealt with using these strategies.
“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,” said Maraga.
“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.