Listen to Pres Ruto Powerful remarks today infront of Martha Koome after MPS Passed Finance bill!

[00:00:00]H um the honorable chief justices, honorable judges, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

[00:00:21]Um, on behalf of the government and people of Kenya, let me take this opportunity to welcome all of you to Nairobi. I know that was done by uh our chief justice and um president of the Supreme Court.

[00:00:42]But let me join her in welcoming all of you distinguished leaders to both Nairobi and to Kenya.

[00:00:54]And it is a great honor for Kenya to host the Chief Justice's Alternative Dispute Resolution Summit 2026.

[00:01:05]To every Chief Justice, Judicial Leader and Delegate gathered here, welcome to Nairobi.

[00:01:14]Welcome to Kenya and we are very happy to have you.

[00:01:21]>> [applause] >> We have come together under a theme that states a critical truth.

[00:01:29]A justice system that serves, listens, and resolves.

[00:01:36]The legitimacy of our institutions is not measured by the number of laws we pass, but by whether our people experience justice as accessible, fair and swift.

[00:01:56]We have gathered to discuss alternative dispute resolution.

[00:02:02]But permit me in this room of distinguished jurists to begin by questioning a single word, the word alternative.

[00:02:15]In Africa, the resolution of disputes through dialogue is not alternative.

[00:02:24]It has never been. [applause] It is the original and the only justice system.

[00:02:35]Long before the colonial courtroom arrived on our shores, the council of endless sat beneath a tree.

[00:02:46]The village assembly gathered on the grass.

[00:02:51]They negotiated settlements, restored relationships, and rebuilt trust.

[00:02:59]That was not a lesser justice.

[00:03:04]It was our justice system.

[00:03:08]Litigation is the import, reconciliation is the inheritance.

[00:03:17]So when the world today speaks of mediation, of restorative justice, of community resolution, as bold innovation, Africa may smile quietly.

[00:03:35]What others are discovering, we have always practiced for generations.

[00:03:43]We did not import alternative dispute resolution.

[00:03:48]We authored it and then for a time forgot we were the authors.

[00:03:56]This summit is our act of remembrance.

[00:04:03]Consider [applause] the most powerful example our continent has ever produced.

[00:04:15]After the 1994 genocide, Rwanda faced a case load its ordinary courts would need decades to clear.

[00:04:30]through the Kashacha courts, nearly 12,000 community tribunals led by locally elected judges of integrity.

[00:04:41]Rwanda tried close to 2 million cases in just 10 years. It remains the most comprehensive community justice process in human history.

[00:04:57][applause] In Kenya, our 2010 constitution anchored alternative dispute resolution into our supreme law, directing our courts to promote reconciliation, mediation, arbitration, and traditional dispute resolution.

[00:05:19]The impact has been significant through the court annex mediation.

[00:05:27]Millions have been returned to our economy and over 8,000 relationships among disputing families have been restored since 2016.

[00:05:43]Last year, our judiciary resolved more cases than were filed, achieving a clearance rate of 104% and cutting its backlog by nearly a third.

[00:06:03]We have also built justice that speaks to people's own language such as the Al Isla alternative justice center in Garisa where mediation and community values resolve disputes that a distant courtroom never could.

[00:06:26]This is justice that meets people where they are.

[00:06:32]The future of justice in Africa must be people rather than process centered.

[00:06:42]Citizens do not measure justice by the complexity of processes or jagons including res jury cutter. I hear something. I don't know what I don't know what that means.

[00:07:02]They measure it by three simple questions.

[00:07:06]Were they hard?

[00:07:08]Was the matter resolved fairly?

[00:07:12]And did the outcome restore their dignity in time? Our institution must answer these three questions in the affirmative.

[00:07:27]Ladies and gentlemen, let me turn to another truth that is too often missed.

[00:07:34]Effective dispute resolution is not only a social good but also an economic engine.

[00:07:43]and the chief justice from Zambia who has two Kenyan names Mumba and uh Mala both are Kenyan names just for your information has said it aly has spoken about our commerce in this uh continent and how dispute resolution and systems that ensure that contracts are enforced in a timely manner could contribute significantly to progress and prosperity in our continent.

[00:08:32]Africa has entered the era of the Africa continental free trade area, the largest free trade area in the world.

[00:08:42]The World Bank estimates it will lift our exports by US dollars 560 billion by 2035.

[00:08:54]But more trade opens the doors for more commercial disputes.

[00:08:59]And here we face an uncomfortable question. Where will those disputes be resolved?

[00:09:09]Today, many African commercial disputes are settled in London, Paris, and Geneva.

[00:09:20]Far from the continent where the investment is, African arbitrators make up fewer than 8% of appointments in the world's leading arbitral institutions.

[00:09:35]And none of the world's five most preferred arbitration seats is in Africa.

[00:09:45]We are learning very painfully not to ship our tea or coffee or minerals abroad in raw form for others to add value and keep the reward of that value.

[00:10:08]And so I ask this gathering a direct question.

[00:10:12]Why do we still ship out our disputes?

[00:10:18]Why does African justice like African produce so often earn its premium somewhere else?

[00:10:29]Singapore, a single city, made itself one of the world's foremost seats of arbitration by deliberate design.

[00:10:41]Africa, a continent of 1.5 billion people, can do the same.

[00:10:48]Let us resolve African disputes on African soil by African jurists under African institutions.

[00:11:02]And by the way, that is not protectionism.

[00:11:06]That is sovereignty.

[00:11:10]>> [applause] >> Last month here in Nairobi, we had the Africa Forward Summit.

[00:11:20]And as African leaders, we had a very candid conversation amongst ourselves and with our partners.

[00:11:30]And we came to the conclusion that we need a paradigm shift in our relationships and engagements with our partners.

[00:11:45]Relationships that are not built on dependency.

[00:11:51]Relationships that are built on sovereign equality.

[00:11:56]Relationships not built on aid, assistance or charity, but partnerships that are mutually beneficial, fair and balanced.

[00:12:17]We made a concrete decision that being a continent of enormous natural resources.

[00:12:31]We are going to reject relationships that extract our minerals, our goods shipped to add value somewhere else.

[00:12:52]And that we are going to insist on investments that create value in our continent, create jobs in our continent, that are fair, that are balanced, that are that benefits everybody equally in a win-win framework, benefiting the investors as much as the owners.

[00:13:20]That is the new relationship we want to build and it is the conversation I had two days ago at the G7 forum because that is what it is going forward.

[00:13:41]And I want to ask of this great um gathering. I I will ask you a a few things in my concluding remarks because um I have the privilege to address many chief justices from our continent. It doesn't always happen.

[00:14:05]Yet we must never reduce justice to commerce. Consider this.

[00:14:11]The World Justice Project estimates that 5.1 billion people worldwide have unmet justice needs and most of them will never set foot in a courtroom.

[00:14:28]That single fact is the case for this meeting.

[00:14:34]If courts alone could deliver justice, the gap would not stand at 5 billion people as it is today.

[00:14:45]Alternative dispute resolution is not a convenience for the powerful.

[00:14:51]It is the only scalable road to justice for citizens.

[00:15:00]The trader, the farmer, the widow, the neighbor.

[00:15:05]A justice the ordinary can only wait for and only the wealthy can afford is not justice.

[00:15:18]It is inequity.

[00:15:21]The changes before or the challenges before our judiciaries are shared. So then must be our solutions.

[00:15:33]This summit is Panaffrican judicial diplomacy in action, building common standards, advancing constitutionalism and proving that the future of justice in Africa cannot be shaped in isolation.

[00:15:52]It must be shared.

[00:15:56][applause] When courts function, citizens trust institutions.

[00:16:03]When rights are protected, societies are stable. When disputes are resolved in peace, investment and prosperity follow. Judicial leadership therefore is not merely a legal duty.

[00:16:22]It is a developmental responsibility.

[00:16:28]But leadership cannot deliver on conviction alone.

[00:16:33]Across our continent, judiciaries confront rising case loads, rising expectations, and rapid technological change. but too often within shrinking budgets.

[00:16:49]If we ask our courts to be engines of peace, investment, and cohesion, we must equip them for the task.

[00:17:00]Funding our judiciaries is not an act of generosity.

[00:17:04]It is a strategic investment in stability and growth in our infrastructure, our technology, judicial training, in alternative dispute resolution programs and alternative justice systems.

[00:17:23]I therefore make this undertaking before you that I will rally my fellow African heads of state and government to recognize strong independent judiciaries as a continental priority deserving adequate predictable funding and firm policy support.

[00:17:47][applause] And when I say so, I know Madame Chief Justice here will be my witness. We have worked together with the Kenyan judiciary.

[00:18:04]I did make commitments to um uh work with an independent judiciary.

[00:18:10]The my first act as president was to appoint and swear in judges that had not been sworn in for some time.

[00:18:24]I also undertook that I was going to to the extent possible with competing interests support the judiciary with budget. I know I haven't measured up to their full expectation but we have kept pace.

[00:18:44]In fact, in the last 3 years, the judiciary has hired and I have appointed 92 judges, the highest [applause] in Kenya's history by one president.

[00:19:04]And we have done so because we believe that it is the right thing to do. And as a result, we are beginning to see results.

[00:19:17]As I just said, for the first time, the judiciary reduced their case load by almost a third and have actually resolved more cases than were filed.

[00:19:38]So, I think we are we are we are making progress.

[00:19:42]And I say this and I can vouch to any leader in our continent that there is value is in investing in our judicial system.

[00:19:58]There is value in having an independent professional judiciary that can adjudicate matters in a manner that benefits the country.

[00:20:15]I have undertaken some of the most difficult policy positions in Kenya.

[00:20:24]If I did not have an independent professional judiciary, I would not succeed.

[00:20:34]Yes.

[00:20:37]I will give you two examples.

[00:20:41]As a country, we have been struggling with um housing and and citizens living in squala.

[00:20:56]Just for numbers, we have in Kenya and4 informal settlements. 1,114 informal settlements. We have 7 million people living in slums.

[00:21:23]It is not something that I should say but that's what it is and therefore it was absolutely necessary for us and we have been trying to settle this housing question for close to 30 years but this time round I said I would and we went to parliament we changed the demon the law.

[00:21:54]We um brought into the equation a housing fund, a housing levy and a whole infrastructure to deliver on it and the results are very clear to the people of Kenya.

[00:22:15]Today we have close to 300,000 houses being built in Kenya.

[00:22:24]We are we've hired 640,000 professionals, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, electricians, masons, carpenters, name them.

[00:22:42]and the skyline of Kenya. Today, if you go to any city in the Republic of Kenya, we have 200 active sites in different parts of Kenya. The skyline is changing.

[00:22:57]But even with that, there are people in court who want to stop it. If we didn't have a professional judiciary, we wouldn't have we wouldn't have moved an inch.

[00:23:14]And the question you ask them is our constitution is explicit.

[00:23:23]As the lawyer would say, section 43 of our constitution mandates government to house every Kenyan in a dignified manner.

[00:23:39]But there are still people who go to court. So what what am I saying? I'm trying to say just imagine if we didn't have a professional judiciary there would be people who would want to stop us from carrying out our constitutional duty.

[00:23:54]I would say the same even up to now 3 years down the the road with houses contracted to 20th floor 15th floor there are still people in court struggling to stop.

[00:24:08]So I can tell any leader anywhere that a functioning judiciary is a resource is a national resource for development not just a dispute resolution mechanism.

[00:24:29]last week.

[00:24:32]Just to give you um what we are also trying to do that is not necessarily in uh in in in in in legal language or in in legal framework with the chief justice and other leaders. Last week, we received uh regulations and a framework for us to compensate some of the people who were harmed when they were participating in protests and petitions.

[00:25:09]We decided that you know we are a society that must live with itself.

[00:25:19]And there are things we can do to create a much more harmonious society and that process will be undertaken. We all agreed as different arms of government, the legislature, the executive, the judiciary that this is the way to go. Our judiciary actually provided the framework and advised us that this is how you can go about uh this exercise and it is creating greater harmony beyond what ordinarily would be matters that can be taken to court and litigated.

[00:26:02]so that there is room for nuancing you know and and making sure that we can we can move together.

[00:26:13]Let me however uh task you and forgive me for this and I have no fees to pay for it.

[00:26:26]You have spoken very well about what a justice system can do to development in either a nation or even in our continent.

[00:26:40]And I and I want to really thank you um uh Justice Mumba for your statement because it is the case I have been making with our colleagues at the Africa Union. When they tasked me with championing the reform of the Africa Union, I undertook to do three things. Number one is to make the commission, which is the executive arm of the commission, a a a fitforpurpose organization by making sure that it has the labors and the power to be able to execute what we as the people of this continent want and that it does so in line with the aspirations of our continent.

[00:27:37]And the second thing that I really wanted to achieve is to have a working parliament for purposes of accountability. Today there is a disconnect between the Panaffrican Parliament and the African Union.

[00:27:54]The Paranaffrican Parliament does not approve the budget of the of the of the commission. It does not approve appointments.

[00:28:03]It's completely you know there and third and most important thing is accountability.

[00:28:15]As we talk we do not have a functioning African court of justice.

[00:28:25]The statute um was established.

[00:28:30]We agreed on everything.

[00:28:34]We were supposed to appoint uh the judges last year but some small technicalities and you can see there is no real political will to do it. I really want to persuade you as the chief justice of our continent. If every chief justice can write to their ministers for foreign affairs and if possible to your head of state, please let us have an African court of justice.

[00:29:09]It is the right thing to do because as we make progress as a continent, we need a mechanism that can help us resolve disputes quickly.

[00:29:29]And that mechanism, that court mechanism must have all the facets, mediation, arbitration, alternative justice, whatever it is. But let us have a justice mechanism.

[00:29:43]My request to you is if it is not um uh if I'm not asking for too much, if you can help me prosecute this one thing that let us have an African court of justice, it will inform our progress and the prosperity of our continent because as we roll out and as was said very able by Justice Mumba as we roll out the African continental free trade area. We need a justice system that makes sure that contracts are signed on time and people can build trust in the business that is going to be undertaken between us and every country and between us and those from other jurisdictions.

[00:30:35]That is my request of you.

[00:30:39]Um and then number two is that as I have said even in all these places where all disputes are being uh carried out our representation is not significant.

[00:31:03]The representation of African jurists is not significant unless you persuade me that we don't have qualified men and women who can serve in those um places.

[00:31:21]And I would disagree with you if you told me we do not have qualified people.

[00:31:26]I know we do.

[00:31:31]Let us also step out and make sure that we position ourselves appropriately.

[00:31:44]For example, for us in Kenya, we once became guests of the international criminal court court and we had real trouble with them because they rarely understood what was going on here and that is why I am sure one of us justice decided that maybe it is time for her to go and serve in this court and explain brain and and and and and so that the court can understand African perspectives on some of the things that we are doing and and uh Madame Joindo is is here uh he's a member of our Supreme Court and she's a candidate for the international criminal court.

[00:32:33]I am not campaigning for her. I was just saying that uh she she is a good candidate and uh she carries a lot of experience uh from Kenya. She was a member of parliament with me so she knows the nuances of politics and uh she's been um a member of our Supreme Court. She was among the first members of our Supreme Court that was established after the 2010 constitution.

[00:33:08]And it is good to encourage as many of us as possible to participate in the justice systems that exist so that African perspectives can be part of what becomes um the dispensation of justice in our in our in our continent and globally.

[00:33:35]So um I have presented to you a very good candidate.

[00:33:44]uh you know what to do with a good candidate and I really I'm very happy this morning to be part of this uh occasion and as I conclude let me reiterate that the people of Africa are asking for justice systems that serve that listen that resolve and that restore.

[00:34:16]Let me and let this summit answer them with practical commitments, lasting partnerships and the courage to affirm alternative dispute resolution and alternative justice systems as continental priorities.

[00:34:35]We were the first to understand that justice is built not by deciding who is right but by restoring what is shared.

[00:34:47]Let us be the generation that remembers it and builds it on African soil.

[00:34:53]Justice systems worthy of Africa's aspirations under agenda 2063.

[00:35:01]and I wish you well as you conclude uh this uh very important summit.

[00:35:09]I know that um we were supposed to start this function at 10 in the morning. I came early. I apologize for disrupting your morning but uh I know that you will leave Kenya with a different perspective on what we can do together. I just want to encourage you that um we have a great continent and we are going to make sure that we do what we must do to make sure that this continent uh goes forward. I know I mentioned something about budgets and um how resources are cast but let me say the following. Um we have also made a decision that we have to do two very important things.

[00:35:59]We have to learn to mobilize resources from our domestic sources.

[00:36:11]And number two, we must also learn how to derisk ourselves so that we can access markets that then give us additional resources. One of the outcomes of the G7 summit that I attended and was as a result of the Africa forward summit resolution that we carried here is that because in our continent we have capital.

[00:36:46]What is lacking is not money. What is lacking is the infrastructure to mobilize and to deploy that capital. Just for your information, um in Africa, in pension funds, in insurance funds, in our central bank reserves in Africa, we have $4 trillion.

[00:37:15]But that money is not invested for the benefit of our continent. Most of that money is in New York Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange and those places. So what we agreed as African leaders is that we are going to build our own African multilateral financial institutions Africa Development Bank, Trade and Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, RTD and all the other uh institutions.

[00:38:00]And number two, we are also going to have a d-risking mechanism. And that was my pitch at the G7. I was telling our colleagues at the G7 that we're not looking for money.

[00:38:13]We have our own money. We have $4 trillion in this continent. What we are looking for are friends who are ready to work with us with guarantees so that we can derisk our resources and mobilize them for the development of our continent.

[00:38:33]We have done it in Kenya. It is possible to be done everywhere else. So this is what we want to do together. And I want to encourage all of you as you go back to our African countries that we can do this. Others have done it. We can do it and maybe we can do it even better.

[00:38:56]Thank you very much. My very best wishes. [applause] >> Thank you so much. Child request to X.