Justice Lottery: Leaked ELC Court data exposes massive gap in Judge performance

Leaked court data exposes a wide gap in judges’ performance. [Courtesy]

There is a likelihood that your land case or environmental matter will either be resolved quickly or the wheels of justice will grind at a slow pace, depending on the Judge where it will land with.

Individual judges’ performance data, as seen by The Standard, reveals interesting insights into the judges' output in the last financial year.

It gives extensive tracking of their specific contributions to case resolutions and overall judicial efficiency.

Chief Justice Martha Koome, during the Supreme Court Judge interviews this year, had indicated that the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) would release individual judges’ performance, and used the same as a matrix to assess the suitability of all candidates who sought to replace former Supreme Court Judge Mohamed Ibrahim.

The data has become a bone of contention with the Kenya Judges and Magistrates (KJMA) proposing that the move should be put on ice until gaps the lobby identified are resolved.

“The Association supports transparency in judicial performance reporting as a matter of principle. We have, however, separately written to the Honourable Chief Justice to request that publication of individual performance reports be sequenced appropriately, given the still-incomplete Case Weighting Study and outstanding gaps in CTS digitisation, so that the data published is fair, accurate and genuinely comparable across stations.”

“This is a request for sound sequencing, not a challenge to the principle of accountability, and we would be glad to keep the LSK informed as that engagement progresses,” a statement by KMJA President, Justice Peter Mulwa, reads in part.

At the same time, there is a court case filed by Duncun Kariuki, who seeks to stall the publication of the data, arguing that it will expose Judges to ridicule.

The Standard has, however, seen a set of the data from the ELC, with the data indicating that only five out of the 63 judges in the special court have delivered more than 100 judgments in the past year.

Justice Oguttu Mboya, according to the data, tops the list with 131 judgments, followed by Justice Dr Fred Nyagaka and Kossy Bor with 112 and 111 judgments respectively.

Mboya was appointed as an ELC Judge in 2021, the same year as Dr Nyagaka, while Bor joined the bench in 2016.

 Justices Esther Asati and Christopher Nzili seal the top five judges list, having solved 102 and 105 cases respectively through judgments. The two were appointed as judges in 2021.

Interestingly, of the 13 judges who were appointed on May 4, 2026, only Justice John Wanyonyi has delivered judgments. He has three under his sleeves whiles the rest have zero each.

Meanwhile, those who have the highest number of judgments and rulings closing a case include Justice Emmanuel Mutwana with a total of 188, followed by Justice Mboya with 166, and Justices Bernard Mweresa, Daniel Mwangi, Jacqueline Mogeni and Nzili, and Noor Kullow sealing the top performers list with 139, 136, 135, 134 and 133 judgments and rulings.

The division is headed by Justice Oscar Angote. From the data, he delivered 38 judgments and 40 rulings, which closed a case, ranking him among the top-tier team within that court.

The court delivered a total of 2962 judgments and 1784 merit rulings. The interlocutory rulings, 4081, were the highest, followed by 3522 other resolutions.

On the flip side, Justices Lilian Gathoni, George Ongondo, Judith Omange, Anthony Kimani and Yuvinalis Angima have the lowest number of delivered judgments. They have 15, 20, 20, 27 and 27 judgments respectively, while if judgments and rulings are combined, Kimani and Gathoni tie at 31, while Ongondo rise to 50, Angima, 53, John Mutungi, 40 judgments and 14 rulings and Boaz Olao with 41 judgments and 14 rulings.

By the time Justices Samson Okong’o and Munyao Sila were being appointed as Court of Appeal Judges, they had delivered a total of 56 and 91 judgments and rulings respectively.

The data release is now at the heart of a case that was filed, challenging the release for allegedly posing a risk of exposing judges to public ridicule and harassment.

The Chief Justice said that the commission had decided to make public the output of each judge for accountability and to enhance performance.

However, Kariuki, in his case filed before the High Court, faulted the move, saying that it was not anchored on any law or rules.

His lawyer, Harun Njoroge, claimed that the report ought to have been released by July 15, 2026.

He was of the view that the JSC was usurping the role of the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, who is allegedly the custodian of the data in question.

Kariuki sued the JSC, the CJ, the National Council on the Administration of Justice, and the Judiciary’s spokesperson Paul Ndemo.

He also cited the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, the Kenya Magistrates and Judges Association, the Kenya Judges Welfare Association, the International Association of Women Judges, Kenya Chapter and the Kenya Judicial Staff Association as interested parties.

His lawyer said that it was unclear who would be held liable for any breach once the data had been published.

“The intended publication exposes Judges and Judicial Officers to the real risk of ridicule, doxxing, cyber harassment and other threats to their personal security and independence, thereby posing a direct threat to the administration of justice,” argued Njoroge.

According to him, the commission should let the wheels of justice grind as they are. Njoroge claimed that the move will result in judges turning litigation into judgments and ruling-churning machines without depth.

He also stated that each judge enjoys independence and individual security of tenure; hence, they ought to be allowed to handle cases without alleged external pressures.

“The mere publication of the data as intended by the first and second respondents absent of any policy or context shall create pressures on the part of the Judges and Judicial Officers where quantitative-based competition shall be created, threatening the qualitative attributes of the judgments, rulings and other determinations of disputes thus creating inappropriate or unwarranted interference with the judicial process by the first and second respondents,” argued Njoroge.

He asserted that judges are humans who would allegedly be prone to judicial stress if the directive is implemented.

The lawyer further said that there are unexpected and unregulated factors which also contribute to cases delaying before courts.

“The Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being recognizes that that the judiciary is made of human beings - individual and independent persons appointed to judicial office and therefore, the judiciary is fundamentally a human system, dependent upon the collective human capacities and faculties of individual judges and the intended unregulated, unpredictable and surreptitious acts of the first and second respondents are likely to cause judicial stress with a direct negative impact on the administration of justice,” he continued.

In his supporting affidavit, Kariuki claimed that the commission never gazetted the new directive. He claimed that it was allegedly clandestinely sneaked into the JSC interview for the Supreme Court Judge.

He maintained that the commission did not carry out public participation or consult the affected parties before making the public announcement.

Muriuki now wants the CJ and the Commission barred from releasing the report until the case is heard and determined.

At the same time, he wants the court to direct that the same cannot happen until regulations or rules are put in place for performance appraisal

“Without any such system, a vacuous blanket release of data of the individual Judges and Judicial Officers shall be nothing more than non-contextualised statistics which serve no purpose in whichever field and worst, serve no justice to any consumer of justice,” argued Kariuki.