Kenya's courts are digitising — eCourt filing, virtual hearings, and electronic case tracking. What this means for businesses, lawyers, and anyone with a matter in court.
Kenya's judiciary has been on a multi-year journey to digitise its operations. What started as an efficiency measure has accelerated into a substantial shift in how courts work — and for businesses and individuals with legal matters, understanding what's available digitally is now practically important.
The Judiciary's Court Management System (CMS) and eCourt portal allows filing and tracking of cases online. Available at ecourt.judiciary.go.ke, the system covers:
Online case filing: For registered advocates, pleadings, applications, and submissions can be filed electronically in participating courts. This removes the need to physically queue at the registry.
Case tracking: Both parties and the public can search for case numbers and track hearing dates, orders, and judgments in cases that have been uploaded to the system.
Fee payment: Court filing fees can be paid via M-Pesa through the eCourt system.
Virtual hearings: Following their significant expansion during 2020–2021, virtual hearings (via Zoom or Teams) remain in use for pre-trial directions, brief applications, and procedural matters in many courts. Substantive contested hearings still typically take place in person.
Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi is the country's main civil, commercial, and family court centre. The Commercial Court — which handles business disputes, contract enforcement, insolvency, and intellectual property — operates from Milimani. Digitisation here matters most for businesses involved in or contemplating litigation.
Outside Nairobi, the high courts in Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, and Eldoret are progressively adopting the CMS.
Contract enforcement: Kenya's Commercial Court has improved its case management, but commercial litigation timelines remain long — typically 2–5 years for a fully contested suit. Businesses are better served by robust contracts that include arbitration clauses, reducing reliance on litigation.
Enforcement of judgments: Even when you win, enforcing a judgment (attaching assets, garnishing accounts) requires separate court processes. The digitisation of these processes is partial.
Small Claims Court: The Small Claims Court handles disputes up to KSh 1 million. It has simpler procedures, lower fees, and faster timelines (cases are typically disposed of within 60 days). Businesses should consider this for routine debt recovery.
Alternative dispute resolution: The Nairobi Centre for International Arbitration (NCIA) and the Kenya Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators both offer commercial arbitration services. International commercial contracts often specify NCIA arbitration as the default dispute mechanism.
Intellectual property registration (trademarks, patents) in Kenya goes through the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI). Trademark searches and applications are available at kipi.go.ke. Digital content copyright is automatic under the Copyright Act, but registration with the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) provides evidentiary advantages in disputes.
Mycrea builds legal technology platforms — document management, case tracking dashboards, and client intake tools for Kenyan law firms and legal departments.
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