Plans to train village officials

LAW agencies are looking at village court officials and peacemakers in communities to train and utilise to settle disputes and grief in villages and rural areas.
Department of Justice and Attorney-General Secretary Dr Eric Kwa, pictured, said there were 1,640 village courts in the country but their officials had not been utilised while the government continued to spend money to send police officers, hire vehicles and pay for fuel to reach into communities and villages to settle disputes, make arrests and lay charges.
The exercise was a waste of money, time and other resources, he said.
“These village court officials and peace officers are an under-par role now and they should be the ones we look at to allow to do the work for us,” Kwa said.
“Train the officials, every peacemaker must be educated up to grade 12 at least and who know how to do the work in the village, know how to negotiate between two parties and be able to take perpetrators to the nearest police station so that police can deal with them.”
According to a Justice Department report, the village court is a vital part of the law and justice sector, the lowest tier of court system but certainly not the least important.
Its effectiveness and success means a lot to how the district, national and supreme courts carry out their functions.
When there is a breakdown in law and order in rural communities, it is the village court that deals with it first, the report said.
Kwa said it was the peace officials who would know the problem first because they lived within the community and the suspects they held and arrested would be relevant to the problem.
“We will start to concentrate on them where issues can be solved at community levels before reaching the top,” he said.