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| NEWS > 27 December 2007 |
Other related articles:
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Senior Police Officer Hidekazu Tomono, 40, of the Metropolitan Police Department's Tachikawa Police Station, disappeared while on duty Monday night and apparently shot a woman to death with his police-issued weapon that night.
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A series of suicides by police officers using their sidearms have been reported ac... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Daily Nation - Nairobi,Kenya
27 December 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Kenya: Police’s ability to pro
Every morning, thousands of suspects are frogmarched to the courts. Several of them know that by the stroke of the judge’s pen, they could spend the rest of their lives in confinement.
Their fate and the time it takes to learn of it, lies on the hands of the judges and prosecutors. Their families and friends make countless trips on the days of the court appearance.
The court prosecutors, who are supposed to make things move, are groaning under the heavy burden of work.
The country currently has a paltry 63 prosecuting counsel, who, according to the director of public prosecutions, Mr Keriako Tobiko, cannot adequately cope with the rising number of cases in our courts today.
The attorney-general has therefore bestowed the onus of prosecuting cases on the police to supplement this small number. Kenya has at least 300 police prosecutors.
Statistics from the AG’s Chambers indicate that the police prosecute at least 90 per cent of all the cases in subordinate courts.
But this huge responsibility has proved to be a tall order for the police, who many think are not qualified for the job.
Police prosecutors, people say, are not adequately conversant with the legal procedures, many a time leading to miscarriage of justice.
Among the problems that have dogged the courts in the recent past is the inability of the prosecutors to bring sufficient evidence to warrant a conviction.
Inability to argue
This has been occasioned by poor choice of witnesses and inability to argue out a case to its logical conclusion.
Indeed, a recent report by the Oscar Foundation faults these law enforcement officers for failing to observe procedures as set out in the criminal procedure code.
The report on Arrest, Investigation and Prosecution by police in Kenya titled - Prosecution and Persecution - says these law enforcement officers are rarely ready to successfully investigate a case to its completion.
“The police, many a time, present insufficient evidence in court, resulting to the latter freeing suspects who should have otherwise been convicted,” says the report.
It goes on: “They, being in charge of investigation and prosecution, are responsible for providing evidence to the Judiciary to establish whether there’s a case and if it meets the standard of being beyond reasonable doubt.”
But this has, however, not been so.
The report further outlines how the police had many a time shown blatant disregard for the law in prosecutions even in the application of simple issues of law.
The reason for all these, sums up the report, is lack of training on prosecution among the law enforcement agencies.
It is against this background that the Government three years ago launched an elaborate plan to employ lawyers as prosecutors.
But this plan seems to have hit a snag, as there seems to be a few lawyers interested in the job.
Mr Tobiko recently conceded that the job was not well paying compared to what lawyers earn in private practice or in the corporate world.
The ambitious plan, according to the DPP, was to see the Government employ at least 150 prosecutors every year from 2004 to 2008.
This means that the Government, by next year, should have at least 750 prosecutors, but alas! only 18 had been employed in the last three years.
A handful applied
“Most lawyers are simply not interested in getting jobs as State prosecutors because of the poor pay,” said Mr Tobiko.
He says that his office had many a time advertised the jobs for those interested since 2004 but only a handful applied for them.
“This has really inhibited our plans to phase out police prosecutors by next year,” says the DPP.
He, however, argues that the Government had fully committed itself to ending this problem by promising to review the salaries of prosecutors.
And with more prosecutors being given jobs, the police will be able to fully concentrate on their core business of preventing crime by efficient and expeditious criminal investigations.
“But before that happens, police prosecutors will be retrained in line with the emerging challenges facing them at work,” he adds.
The use of a police officer as a prosecutor is a remnant of the British colonial legal system, which requires that “any person may initiate a prosecution unless otherwise provided by statute.”
The DPP handles mostly serious cases: those involving murder, armed robbery, and drug smuggling, whereas all other prosecutions are conducted by the investigating police officer.
More often, the DPP appoints a senior police officer who acts as a prosecutor in a criminal case.
Besides phasing out police prosecutors and replacing them with well-trained, well-remunerated lawyers, the Government has also moved in to professionalise with the recent launch of key prosecution documents .
The documents include the National Prosecution Policy, The Code of Conduct and Ethics for Public Prosecutors, The Training Needs Assessment Curriculum and Training Manual for Public Prosecutors and the Reference Manual on the Sexual Offences Act 2006 for prosecutors.
The Code of Conduct and Ethics for Public Prosecutors binds prosecutors to carry out their duties within the law and with special attention to an individual’s fundamental human rights.
Improving the quality
The National Prosecution Policy formulates the key policy considerations for public prosecutions. It aims at providing beacons for the conduct of public prosecutions in a professional and impartial manner.
The Training Needs Assessment and Curriculum and a Prosecutors Training Manual will provide an appropriate framework for improving the quality of prosecution and to enhance the prosecutors’ professional capacity.
The Reference Manual on the Sexual Offences Act, 2006 for Prosecutors on the other hand will be used as a training tool and reference for those prosecuting sexual offences.
Attorney-general Amos Wako says the implementation of the documents will create a transparent and fair system of administration of criminal justice in the country.
The policy documents, he adds, will not only be applicable to public prosecutors, but also the private ones alike.
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