CS Matiang’i urges Kenya’s judiciary to partner with ITU

The Cabinet Secretary for Information and Communications, Dr Fred Matiang’i has encouraged the judiciary to partner with ITU in a bid to improve what he called ‘digital transactions jurisprudence’.

The Cabinet Secretary said this during an event at Strathmore University where he was preceding over the launch of th Univesrity’s Information Security Master’s of Science (Msc.) program

Dr Matiang’i pointed out that Kenya’s foray into the digital landscape would require its law makers and implementers to be able to deal with crises that are likely to arise during the country’s transition to the digital age.

“I would like to encourage the judiciary to invest in, for lack of a better phrase, digital transactions jurisprudence.” Matiang’i said. “I have noticed recently from some of the conflicts we’ve had in the country on digital related issues, we have all observed the needs that the judiciary has to develop its capability to deal with the digital space whether it is in terms of transactions, disputes or any other activities.”

“The ITU has agreed, kindly, to use Kenya as the basis to start a new program of supporting the judiciary to develop digital jurisprudence so that when we have; e-commerce differences, when we have cyber crime incidences, and they end up in judiciary we have judicial officers who can deal with this issues,” he added.

Dr Matiang’i insisted that the need for modernization in the judiciary was important because as Kenya moves forward and further into electronic government, e-commerce and all e-transactions the citizens are likely going to have may result in conflicts that will require resolutions by judicial arm of government.

“The judiciary has to be prepared for this, and this is why we hope that the judiciary training institute will take up this offer, and this proposal that we want to make to them, to work collaboratively with the ITU, to use the resources that the ITU is going to make available to support our judiciary so that t hey can be ready to deal wit h the digital transactions in the digital space we are going to find ourselves in,” stated the CS.

The CS also spoke about what he learnt from the problems of digital migration, and how those lessons make his calls for a more modern judiciary, valid.

“If there is anything I learnt from digital migration crisis that we went through as a country, for the last two years, and the amount of time we have spent, is the need for the judiciary to be equipped effectively to deal with matters of this sort,” he noted.