This time last week I was sitting in Kibera Law Court. The building's located a couple hundred metres into the edge of what I consider the Kibera slum. The road is still paved, but it is a thoroughfare for those walking, and both sides of the narrow road comprised a tightly packed row of shops made out of corrugated roofing, painted in bright colours of the brands they sell, or the names of their establishments.
The courthouse itself was a concrete structure, painted a yellowish colour. As Nairobi is very dusty, it's hard to put an age on the building - it could have been as young as a decade old. On arriving I parked up, and myself and Kones, one of our drivers from the office, went over to the entrance which was closed. Though the summons said 8am, we would have to wait a little while, and knowing this to be the case, we had arrived around thirty minutes late.
When the doors opened we made our way inside and sat down in the courtroom, only to realise that we were in the wrong one, and so we got up and moved to court 3 where traffic offences are dealt with. It was already bustling with people. The room had three rows of benches for observers. We sat down here. At the front was the judges podium, a step up from the rest of the room. In front of her was a table with benches in front and behind. And on the right was a long bench, maybe for a jury. To the left was a box, where a defendant may stand. Behind the jury's bench was a door. The whole room was painted a functional grey, and had lines of wood along the walls. The room was nice and cool and airy and the benches comfortable.
Most of what was going on around me was happening in Swahili. There were many uniformed people - shades of blue, camouflage, military green, and a man in a Salvation Army uniform was sitting in our courtroom. Someone in a police uniform started trying to organise us, and so defendants sat in the visitors bench to the left, and those observing to the right. And now I was asked to submit my summons slip. On the back was a place to sign and date if you were guilty. I signed mine.
In just a few minutes at 9am the judge arrived. The table in front of her now had a team of people who were maintaining the courts functions - reading charges, receipting payments, ordering paperwork. On the other side of the table sat a few lawyers. The cases they began with seemed to involve those who had been unable to post bail, and one by one, or in groups of up to 14 they came through the door to the judge's right, and stood in the bench I had assumed was for a jury. Being a Monday, there must have been a whole weekend's worth of cases. Mostly events happened in Swahili. With so many cases, there seems little room for compassion. one by one, lawyers would tag-team at the front as defendants came and went. Some cases were re-scheduled to January as new evidence was submitted. Eventually, people in the room were starting to be called up to defend. I soon realised that almost everyone in the room had a case, and sometimes people from out the back of the court would come forwards, there being no where left to sit.
Eventually, at around 10:30 my name was called. I quickly stood up and made my way to the bench on the front right. My charge was read out to me, together with the particulars of the place, date and time. "Is this correct?" "It is correct," I said. There was now a pause, as by this point there was a lot of paperwork in motion from previous cases. I stood patiently, my heart beating faster than normal, needing the loo - it's a classic stress response - but I hadn't been prepared to go earlier as I hadn't wanted to miss my name being called. After a minute the judge said "10 months in jail or 8000 shillings". I thanked the judge and turned to the official next to me "Can you pay?" "Yes," I said, and reached for my wallet. I passed him the money and went to sit down at the back of the court to wait for my receipt.
