A day in the life of Chief Magistrate Everlyne Olwande
Chief Magistrate Everlyne Sylvia Achieng’ Olwande, a member of the Judicial Service Commission representing the Kenya Magistrates and Judges Association.
What you need to know:
- For two decades, she has witnessed marriages collapse, children testify, and justice struggle to keep pace.
- Behind every ruling lies grief, resilience and a magistrate navigating law, morality and human complexity daily.
Every morning, Chief Magistrate Everlyne Sylvia Achieng' Olwande walks into a courtroom where someone's marriage is ending, a family is fighting over a dead parent's land, or a child is being asked to describe out loud what an adult did to them. She has been doing this for 20 years.
“Just listening to a child recount what transpired in a sexual violation case, your heart goes out to the child,” she says. “And you wonder if they'll ever heal.”
The Family Court at Nairobi's Milimani Commercial Courts is not an easy posting, and Everlyne has been there longer than most. The cases that come before her cover the full range of family breakdown: divorce, domestic violence, custody battles, burial disputes, and succession fights between siblings who once shared a childhood home.
What strikes you in conversation with her is how openly she speaks about it all, the laws she thinks are badly written, a judiciary she believes is dangerously underfunded, magistrates who walk to the bus stop alone after sentencing dangerous criminals, and a generation of young Kenyans she says is simply unwilling to stay in marriages that are not working. She does not mince her words.
It all started with a television set in Mombasa. “I used to love watching a programme called ‘Crown Court’,” she recalls. “That was, I think, my first encounter with the application or implementation of the law. I would admire how cases would be argued, and how people would get defended in court.”
It was not just the television, though. The instinct was already there. “By nature, I have just this strong sense of fairness. Any incident of unfairness or foul play would really trigger me, even as I was growing up,” she says. “Amongst my siblings, I was always trying to argue a case, or externally, I never shied away from defending a sibling against someone. I believe my parents must have seen that in me.”
After completing her secondary education at Murray Girls High School on the Coast, she proceeded to India for a Bachelor of Arts at Mohanlal Sukhadia University, majoring in Political Science, Sociology, and English Literature. In India, law was offered only as a postgraduate programme, so she went on to pursue a Master of Laws at South Gujarat University. She then returned home, a conscious choice she attributes to patriotism, to complete a postgraduate diploma at the Kenya School of Law, after which she was admitted to the bar as an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.
She spent three-and-a-half years in private practice in Mombasa, but something was missing. Arguing cases from the bar, she kept wondering whether the judicial officers on the other side were really following her reasoning. “Occasionally, you wonder, are the judges and magistrates really seeing the point being made? I felt I could make a bigger difference on the bench where decisions are made.”
She applied to join the Judiciary, was successful, and started as a resident magistrate, eventually rising to chief magistrate, the highest rank in the magistracy. The Family Court handles divorce, matrimonial property disputes, protection orders against domestic violence, burial disputes, and succession cases. Here, she has found the most satisfaction in her career. “I've had many happy moments when I have made decisions that have united families, decisions that have ensured someone got justice and decisions that have changed people's lives.”
She talks warmly about mediating between siblings fighting over their parents’ estates and helping them reach agreement without destroying whatever remains of the family. But not everything about the job is that rewarding. Presiding over sexual offence cases, particularly those involving children, is the hardest part and is made harder when the law ties her hands on sentencing.
The Sexual Offences Act prescribes strict minimum sentences with no room for the court to exercise judgment. Everlyne recalls the anguish of sentencing an 18-year-old schoolboy to a minimum of 15 years in prison for a sexual relationship with his 17-year-old classmate, who was his girlfriend.
“In my view, these young people just need guidance and not to be condemned to rot in jail. The target of that Act, I think, was those sexual predators, grown men of 30 or 40 years preying on young children.”
The superior courts have, however, been testing the validity of sentences that take away or limit the discretion of the courts. The most consistent pattern she has observed over her career is the steady rise in divorce cases. She has thought carefully about why. Part of it, she says, is economic empowerment. “In the olden days, we had so many scenarios of women sticking to a marriage for the sake of the children because they did not have that economic power.”
With more women in employment and with supportive legislation like the Children's Act ensuring maintenance, women now have the agency to leave marriages that are not working. Then there is what she describes as the “instant generation”.
“The older generation was a bit more resilient; we would stomach a lot before we actually snapped. For the current generation, if it's not working, they will leave the next minute. They're not tolerant.”
The bulk of divorce petitions she handles come from millennials and Generation Xers, couples whose marriages were effectively broken down long before they arrived in court. She is critical of the law itself. “Our laws on dissolution of marriage make divorce unnecessarily difficult. I do not understand why we cannot allow divorce by consent where couples are in agreement that their marriage has irretrievably broken down.”
The current process, she says, is largely going through the motions. “Most people divorce in their hearts before they come to court. They will appear before the court to go through the motions and get divorced anyway. Making divorce difficult with the intention of saving the institution of marriage is not working.”
Rising divorce rates bring more disputes over matrimonial property. The judge has pecuniary jurisdiction over cases worth up to Sh20 million, with anything above that going to the High Court. Given that most Nairobi properties are high-value, matrimonial property cases are not as common in her court as one might expect, many are resolved in higher courts or settled privately.
The bigger gap, she argues, is not about property values but about how little Kenyans understand the type of marriage they entered into. The Marriage Act, 2014, recognises five systems of marriage: Christian, civil, customary, Islamic, and Hindu. Christian, Hindu, and civil marriages are strictly monogamous, and taking another spouse while in one of these constitutes bigamy, a criminal offence. Customary and Islamic marriages are polygamous.
The problems come when tradition and statute collide. “We have a lot of instances where you find a man has married a woman in church, then takes a second wife under customary law. Ideally and strictly speaking, that subsequent marriage is not valid.”
Succession
Yet under succession law, that second wife, while not recognised under the Marriage Act for marital purposes, is recognised for inheritance purposes and is entitled to a share of the estate. This is why marriage registration matters so much, something the 2014 Act tightened considerably. For customary marriages contracted after the Act came into force, Section 12 renders an unregistered marriage voidable, meaning a spouse can potentially dispute its validity years later, often to avoid sharing property.
Everlyne thinks the law should be amended to include a time limit. “If by a certain time parties who have not registered their marriage are still together, then the marriage should be deemed valid and cannot be invalidated.”
Her advice to couples is practical: document everything. “A lot of times when parties get together, no one is conscious of keeping track of who is doing what.”
Courts recognise non-monetary contributions such as homemaking and childcare, but proving the extent of one’s input without records, receipts, bank statements, and witness accounts is difficult, and one may not receive their rightful share.
Documentation
“Documentation is key,” she says. “Some hard discussions have to be had, and it is also good practice to discuss such things as property before marriage, because yes, we mean well, but we all know sometimes life happens.”
The Judiciary has been trying to close the awareness gap through Court User Committees, which conduct public sensitisation drives on these issues. Mediation has also been playing a growing role within the court, particularly in succession and matrimonial property disputes. “The Chief Justice's vision, Social Transformation through Access to Justice, encourages the use of multi-door approaches to justice.”
Last year, 17 cases were referred to mediation, nine of which were resolved, giving a 53 per cent resolution rate. Technology has changed how the courts operate as well. The Judiciary has developed a case tracking system with an external platform for filing documents in a virtual registry and an internal one for case management. Combined with virtual courts, Everlyne says this has been the biggest shift in access to justice in recent years.
“One can access our courts either in the registry or the court itself from any corner of the world at the touch of a button.”
In the Family Court, 95 per cent of cases are now heard virtually. She is careful to point out, though, that litigants in rural areas who lack reliable internet connectivity risk being left behind by these changes entirely. Beyond the Family Court, she serves as a commissioner at the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), representing the Kenya Magistrates and Judges Association. She has used the position to raise concerns about something she feels does not get enough attention: the physical safety of judicial officers. “Magistrates have no form of security whatsoever,” she says.
She points to the shooting at Makadara Court, where a magistrate was killed while presiding over a case from a makeshift tent. “I actually went there a few minutes after the shooting and my heart bled. I asked myself, do we value justice as a commodity in this country?”
The fact that official vehicles are provided only for chief magistrates is misguided, she argues. A vehicle for a judicial officer is not about status, it is about security. The reality is that a magistrate can deliver a tough ruling against a dangerous criminal, then walk out of the courtroom alone, board public transport, and make her way home with no protection at all.
“Influence on decisional independence can even come in the form of fear. As one making a crucial judgment, I need to feel that I can make a decision that I feel is right without fear of repercussions.”
The security problem is part of a broader pattern of chronic underfunding. “The Judiciary, I believe, is the most under-resourced arm of government in this country. Resource allocation is always 50 per cent of our resource requirement, and sometimes even less.”
She describes visiting Lodwar, where parents of defilement victims eventually give up on cases because each trip to court costs Sh2,000, with no guarantee of when the matter will be concluded. In Nairobi alone, 38,000 small claims cases had been filed by the end of January 2025, handled by just 13 magistrates required to conclude each case within 60 days.
Mobile courts, which take justice to remote areas, are being scaled back because of budget cuts. “The need for justice services out there is huge. But the capacity in terms of human resources is minimal.”
There is also the question of the mental health of judicial officers. “Mental wellness in judiciaries is a big conversation globally right now,” she says.
Wellness policy
At the JSC, work is underway on a Psychosocial Support and Wellness Policy that will set out what support is available to judicial officers. For now, counselling through the medical cover and events such as Judiciary Sports Day give members some room to decompress. She does not hold back when it comes to what she thinks the country needs to do. “Kenyans need to appreciate that judicial services don't come cheap. If we are serious about upholding the rule of law, if we are serious about access to justice, then we must be prepared to invest adequately in the Judiciary.”
She wants a fixed, predictable budget allocation for the Judiciary, similar to how revenue is shared with counties, so that the third arm of government can plan and is not left scrambling year after year. Away from the courtroom, Everlyne is one of nine siblings, most of whom live in Nairobi. She is a married mother of three and spends her free time with family. “We have similar interests, so you'll invariably find us doing the same thing together at any given time.”
They travel, relax, and spend time together, which she clearly values in a job where work tends to follow you home in files and in thoughts. To young Kenyans who feel drawn to a career in justice, she says, “Dream big because from the desires of our hearts, big dreams are nurtured, intention is created, and reality is born. A career on the bench for such a person can be deeply satisfying, but it requires commitment, hard work, diligence, and sacrifice. One must also wear the cloak of integrity always. Otherwise, the career would be short-lived.”
