The State Law Office has warned that the government risks losing many court cases that will expose it to higher financial penalties should the austerity measures proposed by President William Ruto be implemented.
Solicitor-General Shadrack Mose told MPs that the Sh950 million budget cut that SAGAs under the State Law has suffered, will adversely affect key legal services offered by the office.
“Representation of government in cases will be weakened resulting to higher risks in losing cases resulting in possibilities of higher financial losses,” Mr Mose told the Justice and Legal Affairs committee.
Mr Mose said with both domestic and foreign travel having suffered a combined budget of 70 percent, the move will greatly affect the civil litigation department in representing the government in courts across the country.
In the proposals contained in the supplementary estimates currently before Parliament, the domestic travel budget for the State Law Office was slashed from the initial allocation of Sh315,470,218 to Sh157,735,113 while the foreign travel budget has been reduced from Sh107,388,762 to Sh85,911,010
“The reduced budget means that the services offered by civil litigation, government transactions, legislative drafting, public drafting and Registrar-General will be adversely affected,” Mr Mose said.
Also set to be affected by the cuts according to the Solicitor-General is the number of cases concluded against the government.
He added that the issuance of legal opinions and advisories, drafting of legislations and finalisation of estates and trust files will also be largely impacted by the cuts.
Those registering for marriages in order to get certificates from the State Law office will also have to wait longer for the important document as Mr Mose said the cuts will hurt the service.
The Gross Approved Estimates for the State Law Office and Department of Justice for the 2024/25 financial year was Sh6,977.6 billion comprising Sh6, 820.6 billion for recurrent expenditure and Sh157.0 million for capital expenditure.
However, the approved estimates have since been adjusted to Sh6, 102.9 billion comprising Sh5, 945.9 billion for recurrent expenditure and Sh157.0 million for capital expenditure.
As a result of the budget rationalisation decentralisation of the State Law Office to counties will now get Sh337.6 million from the Sh348.3 as initially proposed in the estimates, Public trustee – -field services have been reduced from Sh28.4 to Sh13.7 million, Registrar of Marriages allocated reduced fromSh24 million to Sh10.7 million, Civil Litigation Department and operating expenses cut has been reduced from Sh1.4 billion to Sh309.8 million).
The headquarters Administrative Services budget was sliced from Sh281.7 million to Sh138.9 million, Treaties and Agreement Department has suffered the cut from Sh91.9 million to Sh26.0 million) and National Legal Aid service will now only get Sh7.2 million as opposed to the earlier proposed Sh17.1 million.
