Judges attending the annual colloquium in Mombasa have accused the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of hiring and deploying undertrained State counsel and prosecutors to handle cases at the law courts.
High Court judge Jackie Kamau, alongside Jamila Mohammed, told the conference yesterday that most of the State counsel were lacking experience in handling matters in the court.
They added that the vice had contributed to the State losing many cases which they would have won if they were being handled by competent officers.
“We have seen matters which are very easy to interpret, however, since the DPP allocated the case to someone who has no capacity to even lead the witnesses and interpret the law, the State ends up losing a matter while the suspect indeed committed the offence,” said Mohammed.
The judges called on the State counsel to up their games while prosecuting matters. The judges further accused representatives of the Attorney General’s office of absconding court hearings in matters where they were involved.
Deputy Director Public Prosecutions Dorcas Oduor apologised to the judges for allocating cases to counsel who lacked experience, saying most State prosecutors were posted directly to the court from school without undergoing any kind of training. She urged the Judiciary to be patient with the State counsel even as they sought more time to train the prosecutors.
“We request you to be patient with our office, even as we make efforts to retrain them, we highly regret for the lost cases, however, let’s improve our relationship by you offering advice on which prosecutor can handle certain matters better,” said Oduor.
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