Litigant Association of Kenya Support · Advise · Connect · Defend
Our work

Our advocacy

We organise litigants around concrete reforms: less delay, clearer information, fairer fees, and accountability when process fails the people it is meant to serve.

Focus areas

Where we concentrate our efforts

Six priorities. For each: the challenge litigants face, what the Litigant Association of Kenya is working toward, and how we act.

Delay

End unreasonable adjournments

The challenge

Adjournments are one of the most common reasons civil and commercial matters drag on for years. A hearing is listed, parties prepare and travel, then the matter is stood over, often with little explanation and no firm next date. Costs mount while resolution stays out of reach.

Our response

The Litigant Association of Kenya presses for enforceable limits on adjournments without good cause, published reasons when matters are stood over, and clearer accountability when delay becomes the default.

  • Document adjournment patterns reported by members
  • Brief decision-makers with litigant testimony
  • Push for rules that treat parties’ time as a serious concern

Access

Transparent cause lists

The challenge

When daily cause lists are late, incomplete, or hard to find, litigants cannot plan. People miss hearings, waste travel costs, or learn of a listing too late to prepare. Opaque listing practices also make it harder to hold institutions accountable.

Our response

The Litigant Association of Kenya works for cause lists that are published on time, easy to access, and reliable enough that parties can organise their affairs with confidence.

  • Advocate for consistent public access to daily listings
  • Highlight failures where listings change without notice
  • Help members record listing problems for follow-up

Cost

Affordable filing & fees

The challenge

Court and related fees can consume a large share of a claim’s value. For ordinary litigants, filing, process, and related costs decide whether someone can start or continue a case at all.

Our response

The Litigant Association of Kenya advocates for fee structures and waiver pathways that keep the courts open to people of modest means, especially in high-volume civil matters where cost barriers bite hardest.

  • Gather member experience of filing costs and waivers
  • Call for clearer pathways to relief where fees block access
  • Put litigants’ cost burden into policy conversations

Outcomes

Timely judgment & execution

The challenge

Winning on paper is not the same as getting a result. Long waits from hearing to judgment, and further delay in execution, leave successful parties stranded. Delay after determination can undo a favourable outcome.

Our response

The Litigant Association of Kenya campaigns for clearer timelines from hearing to judgment and for execution processes that do not leave parties waiting indefinitely after the court has decided.

  • Track delays between hearing, judgment, and execution
  • Advocate for practical timelines after determination
  • Treat post-judgment delay as a justice issue

Clarity

Plain-language court information

The challenge

Forms, notices, and procedural guidance are often written for lawyers, not for the parties who must use them. Litigants without counsel are left guessing about steps, deadlines, and what a notice requires.

Our response

The Litigant Association of Kenya calls for court information that ordinary people can understand, in English and Kiswahili where appropriate, so process itself is not a barrier to justice.

  • Identify notices and forms that exclude ordinary parties
  • Advocate for plain-language guidance on common procedures
  • Support members while pressing institutions to improve materials

Evidence

Member monitoring

The challenge

Individual complaints are easy to dismiss. Organised records of adjournments, listing failures, fee barriers, and post-judgment delay are harder to ignore. Without documentation, reform stays anecdotal.

Our response

The Litigant Association of Kenya supports member monitoring so lived experience becomes evidence the association can use in advocacy with courts, partners, and the press.

  • Help members log delays in a consistent way
  • Aggregate county-level reports into advocacy
  • Turn private frustration into organised public evidence
Method

How we advocate

01

Document

Members report delay patterns, fee barriers, and procedural failures. We aggregate evidence for advocacy and press.

02

Publish

Statements and updates keep policymakers, partners, and the public informed of litigants’ concerns.

03

Engage

We seek meetings, consultations, and coalitions, always as a litigants' association, never as counsel.

04

Mobilise

Member forums and monitoring turn individual experience into organised pressure for reform.

Support this work

Membership strengthens research, organising, and a collective voice for litigants across Kenya.

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