Police have launched investigations after a Friday morning fire razed down court files at the Mavoko law courts.
The fire is reported to have started at 4 am but was not contained until 5 am despite the Athi River police station being just a hundred metres away.
Speaking about the incident, the judiciary stated that the files involved in the dawn fire were those of closed cases.
“The fire damaged archived files, some ICT equipment, floors and walls, but did not affect any active case files,” the Judiciary said.
In the statement, the judiciary also confirmed that the Mavoko law courts will remain open and that all operations continue as usual.
“The judiciary’s ongoing digital transformation, including e-filing and the Ajira programme for digitizing files, aims to mitigate such incidents in the future,” the statement added.
Mitigating fire incidents
In July 2020, a notice from the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary Anne Amadi stated that the filing of cases in all the courts in Nairobi would be done exclusively through the electronic filing system (e-filing).
This means that the advocates and public prosecutors as well as members of the public will be required to register themselves through the Judiciary portal.
The Judiciary chief administrator said that the portal is already open for use and the public is encouraged to familiarise themselves with it prior to the official launch.
This is part of the ongoing digitization of the Judiciary with some courts already having started recognizing the service of documents by way of WhatsApp and email.
During this COVID-19 period, advocates have been filing documents digitally and attending court virtually, rendering court clerks’ services superfluous.
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