Urgent need for frank conversation on cost of trivial cases in the courts

A frivolous or trivial court case is a lawsuit that lacks legal merit or factual foundation. In most cases, such suits are filed to harass an opponent, squeeze out a nuisance settlement or simply delay an outcome.

A single trivial case might pass for a minor nuisance, but the cumulative economic damage it inflicts on a country’s justice system and litigants is enormous, though entirely preventable. Every frivolous suit occupies judicial time and courtroom space that should be available to litigants with genuine grievances.

Justice is not always delayed by complex litigation; sometimes it is delayed by cases that should never have been filed in the first place.

There is, therefore, an urgent need for a frank national conversation on the cost of allowing hollow litigation to choke the wheels of justice. The courts bear the most immediate burden of frivolous cases.

Lest we forget, taxpayers fund Kenya’s judiciary. Therefore, every hour a judge spends studying a petty case, listening to a baseless application, or composing a reasoned dismissal is an hour stolen from a real dispute.

That said the over 600,000 pending cases clogging Kenya’s justice system currently ought to be reviewed to weed out trivial matters.

A significant slice of that heap consists of claims that, in the language of civil procedure, are “scandalous, frivolous or vexatious.” Ideally, these cases should have been thrown out a long time ago.

Kenyan courts do have the power, under the Civil Procedure Act and the Advocates Act, to order that the losing party pay the full costs of a frivolous action and to discipline lawyers who file abusive cases. But have we invoked that power every time we needed to?