Koome epitomises strength of women

Let us all hail the ascendancy of Martha Koome — the first woman chief justice in Kenya — to the top seat. Even though my brief in this column is to comment on business and economic issues, I feel that I would be — like an ostrich — burying my head in the sand if I did not celebrate one of the most momentous happenings of our time, Kenya’s first female head of the Judiciary.

The Monday ceremony, where Justice Koome was assuming office, projected powerful optics in terms of the advancement of women to top positions in the Judiciary. The fact that the chief, the deputy head, the chief registrar and several heads of important court divisions are women, is a sign of the times we live in.

The results of a study conducted by a top leadership development consultancy published in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review quickly came to mind.

The study empirically demonstrated that when women are given a chance to prove themselves in serious positions — when they are handling something that is broken — they will excel better than their male counterparts.

From interviews in the study, women scored better on parameters such as ‘aspires to motivate’, ‘communicates powerfully’, ‘collaboration and teamwork’ and ‘relationship building’. In terms of bureaucratic efficiency and organisational discipline, Justice Koome has assumed leadership of the Judiciary at a critical time.

Modern language

It was the regime of former chief justice Willy Mutunga that began the process of modernising management of the Judiciary to make the institution managed as a modern and efficient corporate body under the much-trumpeted transformation agenda.

Like square pegs in round holes, we started hearing judges mouthing business school jargon — ‘sustaining judiciary transformation’, ‘service delivery’, ‘judiciary blue prints’, the list is long. The language is modern and the semantics — very contemporary. Still, we must accept that the progress in corporatising the Judiciary and taking it to new levels of bureaucratic efficiency has been patchy.

If I were asked to name the biggest complaint by companies about the administration of justice today, I would say that it is delay. There are inordinate delays in the disposal of cases. What the private sector is yearning for is speed, cheapness and finality.

What should be Justice Koome’s priority in terms of improving the bureaucratic efficiency of the judiciary? I can only put in my two cents as I cannot pretend to know the magic wand. It’s the money, stupid. The priority of priorities for the new chief justice should be to immediately operationalise the Judiciary Fund.

Is it not the height of irony that more than 10 years since we promulgated of the new constitution, the Judiciary Fund is yet to see the light of day? How can the Judiciary be expected to exercise independence and to achieve bureaucratic efficiency under circumstances where it is unable to plan or control it’s own finances?

The reason the Judiciary Fund has not been established is because the National Treasury insists on clinging to powers it held over public finances before the new constitution came to town. 

Financial autonomy

You have to go back to a June 2020 letter by the former Chief Justice Maraga to the governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, Dr Patrick Njoroge, to understand the crux of the turf war that has been going on between the National Treasury and the Judiciary over power and control of the public purse.

Justice Maraga wrote a strongly-worded letter to the the governor, making the point that since the Constitution grants the Judiciary financial autonomy and independence, the institution did not require the approval of the National Treasury to open a Judiciary Fund account with the Central Bank as Dr Njoroge had suggested.

What should be clear to the new chief justice, therefore, is that the Judiciary’s battle to get the financial autonomy granted to it by the Constitution will not come on a silver platter. The chief justice must be prepared to grab it from the clutches of the National Treasury.

Still, operationalising the Judiciary Fund and making the Judiciary have its own account at the CBK won’t be enough. The Judiciary must break away from the National Treasury-run and scandal-ridden IFMIS and set up its own modern accounting system based on what accounting and finance wonks call an ‘ERP’ that will make it possible to produce financial statements regularly and at a press of a button.

Justice Koome must strive to take the accountability and public financial management challenge to the next level by making the Judiciary the first arm of government to prepare and table audited accounts within three months of the financial year- end.

But can she deliver bureaucratic efficiency and financial dependence better than her predecessors? As the famous reggae artist, Shaggy, would say, don’t you underestimate the strength of a woman.

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