Drivers of Judicial Governance Reforms on Service Delivery in Kenya

Abstract

In any given society conflict is inevitable and hence the need to have institutions in place to deal with dispute resolution. The legal culture is important for how people perceive not only the judiciary but the political system at large. The Judiciary is regarded as the guardian of laws and societal integrity and therefore critical in the guarantee of good governance. The way the judiciary operates in terms of service delivery also has an impact on the country’s economic and development performance. “Justice is complex and multidimensional, and the justice process must provide more than formal, adversarial proceedings designed to find guilt or innocence, and winners and losers. In a sense, justice is no longer the exclusive preserve of the traditional justice system. This research examined and documented policy, funding, stakeholder types, training and technology as drivers of judicial governance reforms on the delivery of services in Kenya. The literature related to the variables of the study was reviewed in relation to service delivery by the judiciary. The dynamic theory of service management and the theory of change was used in the study. This study adopted a descriptive survey design, which was aimed at collecting qualitative and quantitative data using a two stage sampling method and employed a positivist philosophy. The study sample size was 470 respondents identified through two stage sampling technique: stratified and simple random sample because of the populations’ homogeneous characteristics. The data was collected using structured questionnaires subjected to reliability testing carried out by use of Cronbach’s Coefficient Alpha that was found above 0.7 indicating a satisfactory reliability. Descriptive and inferential Analysis for each variable was carried out. Inferential statistics used the regression model and ANOVA. The decision to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis of each objective was based on the significance of coefficients (p˂ 0.05) of the related variables in the fitted regression. This was then summarized by a further analysis using multiple regression analysis and presenting the results in tables, figures and pie charts while the qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis technique to come up with themes that were presented in tabular form. The findings revealed that the drivers of judicial governance reforms (Policy Framework, Funding of Judiciary, stakeholders’ involvement, training, information communication and technology) significantly influenced judicial service delivery in Kenya. The study therefore concluded that none of them (Policy Framework, Funding of Judiciary, stakeholders’ involvement, training, information communication and technology) could be ignored as each played its role significantly in influencing judicial service delivery. However, there were a few areas that could be improved on and as such, this study made several recommendations for improvement some of which include; reforming and streamlining many areas of the legal system, as well as reforming social institutions with the goal of creating a more holistic model of service, Revision of judicial officer performance appraisals guidelines balancing between faster dispensation of judgements and quality of the judgement, updating of outdated policies; make justice affordable to everyone; and vetting out corrupt judges. The findings of this study indicated that the existing policies are adequate in their line of work that they could have access to the policy documents at any time and they had no problem with the clarity of most of the policy documents. From the study it was clear that the judiciary has adequately involved the public in the current reforms, however, it was also noted that the judicial procedures have increased post reforms, which hinder their efficiency in their line of work. The results support the theory of change on the aspect of driver reforms requisite for the judiciary to effectively enhance service delivery. The research suggests an exploration of other factors that influence judicial service delivery in Kenya and similar studies to be conducted in other jurisdictions.