Police Prosecutors to Be Phased Out, Says DPP Tobiko

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Ramadhan Rajab

28 June 2011

The Department of Public Prosecution has gazzetted 300 police officers to work in the prosecutor’s office. Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko officiating his first function since his controversial appointment said the move is aimed at professionalising prosecutorial services. He spoke during the official opening of the Trial Advocacy Training Workshop for the newly recruited prosecution counsels in Nairobi yesterday. Tobiko further said the replacement of police prosecutors will enhance control and accountability in prosecution of cases.

In the past, the role of criminal prosecution especially at the lower courts were delegated to the 360 police prosecutors who conducted 95 per cent of the cases.

Cases at the High Court and Court of Appeal were handled by the 83 professional prosecutors (State Counsels). However, Tobiko decried the staff shortage at the DPP office. “Currently, we have 83 prosecution counsels against optimal requirement of 500. This number does not include the 400 prosecution counsel required to replace police prosecutors. As regards support staff, we have currently 108 as against optimal requirement of 950,” he said adding that this shortage has led to excessive workloads, inadequate case preparations and delays in the disposal of cases.

“This shortage of staff had necessitated a heavy reliance by the Prosecution Service on the untrained police prosecutors,” he added saying that his office had already engaged the government on this.

The three day training that kicked off yesterday at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies organized by the Directorate of Public prosecutions in conjunction with the US Department of Justice (USDOJ) is geared towards equipping the country’s 32 newly recruited prosecution counsel with prosecutorial skills.

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