HON.EMILY OMINDE

Hon Emily Ominde, the Acting Principal Magistrate in Kikuyu, believes in social justice. “As a magistrate you are an arbiter, a moderator, and you have an opportunity to heal people’s lives through the decisions you make. I am what we call in jurisprudence a socialist lawyer. I’m a combination of a liberalist and socialist in the sense that I like to interpret the law as liberally as possible to ensure that at the end of the day social justice is realised in the decisions I make,”

she says. She adds that she uses this concept to “heal” people. “I do it from the heart not the head,” she says. And she explains further: “I look at the people who come before me as troubled people who are not only in conv ict with the law but also in convict with themselves and in conv ict with others. I help them realise that it’s not the crime they have committed; there is something fundamentally wrong with them that they need to sort out and they go back and ask themselves, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ I’ve to interpret the law as liberally as possible to ensure social justice and save a soul,” she says.

She decided to join the legal profession long in her childhood. “At first I wanted
to become a defence lawyer,” she recalls. the decision was inspired by an incident she witnessed on her way to school one morning when she was in Standard Four in a school in Naivasha.

“I saw a thief who had been arrested by the police and was handcuffed. He was being beaten by the public and the police offcers did nothing to stop them. He was being beaten and dragged on the ground. It was such a shock. He kept saying, ‘Why don’t you people take me to court so that I can tell the court that I didn’t do it? Why are you beating me?’ I looked at him and thought he may not have done it and that’s when I decided to protect people who may be innocent and may be judged wrongly.” She dropped the ambition to be a defence lawyer when she later realised that the magistrate is the one who has the _ nal say and can save people’s lives.

After law school, she began her work as a magistrate in Meru in 1991 where she worked until October 1995 when she was transferred to Nakuru. She was the resident magistrate dealing with criminal, tra_ c and civil cases until she was transferred to chair the Rent Restriction Tribunal in 1999.

She was chairperson of the tribunal, dealing with disputes relating to landlords and tenants in residential houses, until January 2005 when she went back to the Nakuru law courts as a Senior Resident Magistrate. She was in Nakuru until July 2007 when she was transferred to Kikuyu as Acting Principal Magistrate. She is the head of the station.

Hon Ominde says she loves the job, not because of the pay which she says is hardly commensurate with the workload but because she can help heal society. But she also concedes that the challenges of the job are numerous. “ challenges are very many.the first is to divest yourself of all your opinions and views and be as objective as possible when o_ ciating in court and also in your decisions. We listen to very horrendous and terrible things that human beings do to each other, especially in robberies, rapes and it’s hard

not to judge that person on what you are feeling. But you have to remove yourself and ensure the decision is not coloured by your subjective views.”

Th e other challenge she faces is the sheer numbers that she deals with. She admits that people have become very aware of their rights and the available judicial officers are not able to sufficiently deal with each case. is, she observes, has a bearing on the quality of justice.

Infrastructure in the judiciary is also wanting. _ e judiciary has not risen to the occasion and made the institution ITcompliant. “We have all these numbers to deal with and we still use long hand –no computerisation. there’s no technology to assist us deliver faster and more e_ ective justice,”

she says. The other challenge she cites is the poor pay. “It’s pathetic,” she declares. However, she says the challenge for the judicial o_ cers is to be in the job not because of what you earn but because you care about the people who come to you seeking justice. “You tell yourself, ‘let me do it, whether I am being paid or not for the love of God and the country.’” Hon Ominde says she has only faced a few challenges as a female magistrate. She remembers that as a young magistrate in Meru in the 90s some men could not trust her with their cases. they used to call her “that little girl” but she earned their respect by the way she dispensed justice.

Hon Ominde says she leaves “the magistrate’s gown” locked up in the office when she leaves for home, for the home environment needs to be respected. But there are times when she has to write judgments at night at home. She follows the advice of Lady Justice Mary Ang’awa. “Lady Justice Ang’awa told us to create a corner somewhere so that if you have work to do, your office is not all over the place.”

“What I’d like to see is judicial officers treat people with respect so that when they come before us they leave with their dignity intact. I’d also like the people we serve to realise that we are also human beings who go beyond the call of duty to ensure that, in our small way, justice is delivered,” she says.

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