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Thursday, July 23, 2020

The President of the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of Kenya, Hon David Maraga revealed that the Judiciary is in the process of building a data center, that will be a hub of all justice institutions like the Police, Prisons, DPP, DCI among others.

Speaking during a courtesy call to the University of Nairobi Vice Chancellor, Prof. Stephen Kiama, CJ Maraga opined that he would be glad to partner with the University ICT expertise in implementing the project. The cloud storage and internet infrastructure is currently done by KENET and the University of Nairobi is a Trustee Member of KENET (Kenya Educational Network).

The CJ revealed that the Judiciary is interested in building a data center, but have the option to lease in the short term. He revealed that COVID19 has offered the Judiciary a chance to serve justice through the use of technology and more cases has been processed since March. “More than 500 electronic files have been done in the last 60 days,” he said. He also revealed that going forward, expert witnesses like ballistic experts, government chemists and pathologists will be giving their evidences online and may not come to Court as has been the case.

KENET Executive Director, Prof. Prof. Meoli Kashorda revealed that they have been successful in giving internet infrastructure to all institutions of higher education in Kenya. From colleges to universities and to Technical Vocational and Educational (TVETs) Institutions in the country.

Earlier on, the CJ was taken into the data center server room to have a firsthand experience of how a data center operates even as they plan to put up such an infrastructure in place. KENET data center is supplied with various power sources, to ensure 99.99% uptime. The data center is mirrored in two other universities to ensure uptime or possible rollback in case of attacks. The data center is served by a team of network engineers, cloud engineer and network development specialists. It was revealed that all universities are on the last mile on fiber optics with speeds up to 1000Megabytes.

Prof. Kiama, the Vice Chancellor, offered to support the Judiciary in its endeavors to get a data center. He noted that the University has been at the forefront in living according to its core values of innovativeness and care and in that regard, the University is more than willing to support the Judiciary with technical expertise, having been a pioneer in the cloud storage sector. 0791881038