DISMISS THE CASE AT THE OCS LEVEL; LET IT END AT THE POLICE STATION. THE ERA WHEN THE JUDICIARY WAS A PARADISE IS NO MORE!

Picture this, you get slapped with charges in the courts, plead NOT GUILTY, and then they hit you with a cash bail, say 20k. The first place you land is in the cells. Now your spouse or sibling kicks off the gruesome act of bailing you out.

First things first, they have to wait for that bulky file to meander from the courtroom back to the registry, where the bail processing begins. This, my friend, is where the drama starts.

If you’re sans an advocate, that file will warm the courtroom’s floor on another excellent hour as you cool your heels in the cell. If your wife or sibling is clueless about where to begin or what the process entails, they better arm themselves with an extra 5k on top of the 20k, ama you’ll find yourself packed off to prison.

From the court, the file will be transported to the registry by a famished court clerk dreaming of lunch. The file will then join the queue to kick-start the paperwork.

Your spouse must get an official note which they’ll use to pay the bail at the nearest KCB bank or KCB Mtaani. This is the only channel of making payments to the Judiciary in Kenya.

Then it’s back to the court’s cash office for an official receipt. That’s the golden ticket that will be used to process the release order, which must get a signature from the magistrate.

But alas! Upon reaching the cash office, they are told the systems are ‘down.’ They are always conveniently “down,” if you get my drift. If your spouse has a little something to jolt them awake, they’ll spring back to life very fast. Meanwhile, you’re still languishing in the cell.

If you’re lucky, you won’t be told that the file has mysteriously disappeared or that an error needs correction. You’ll think it’s normal. No. It’s designed to function that way.

By this time, it’s around 4.30 pm, and the Moody Awori bus has arrived, ready to transport prisoners back to prison. You’re shuffled from the Police section to the prison section. You’re ordered to strip down everything for a search.

All these shenanigans are orchestrated to ensure your spouse or relative is “cooperating” in “processing” the bail. If you don’t want to endure all this humiliation, you slide something their way, and you’re swiftly set aside. It’s just how the system works.

Finally, your release order is handed to the officer in charge, and you’re set free as the other prisoners hop onto the bus.

Chief Justice Willy Mutunga was hip to all this. He had stationed cashiers in the courtrooms to collect the bail there. A process that currently takes a whole 5 hours would only take 30 minutes. You pay, and the magistrate signs the release order, and you stroll out of the courtroom straight to your home.

The system was sabotaged by court staff since it cut off their side hustles. Martha Koome can reinstate it. I wonder if she’s privy to what transpires in these courts. As for whether the LSK can expose such issues publicly, forget it.

My advice? Slip the OCS some shillings, and let the case end at the police station. The golden days when the judiciary was a refuge are long gone.