'Price list' for Kenya's judges

Pressure mounts for reform of Kenya's judicial system as a newspaper publishes a list of what it costs to bribe a judge.

The Daily Nation, citing a report to the chief justice earlier this week, says it costs up to 15m shillings ($190,800) to bribe an appeal judge.

A magistrate, however, can be bought with as little as 4,000 shillings ($50), the paper says.

The report said that half of Kenya's judges were corrupt.

Go 'quietly'

President Mwai Kibaki was elected last December partly on his pledges to end corruption in Kenya, which had prompted donors, including the International Monetary Fund, to end funding.

JUDGE'S PRICE LIST Appeals court: $190,800 High court: $636 - $20,356 Magistrate: $50 - $1,908 Murder/ Armed robbery: $509 - $17,723 Manslaughter, rape, drugs: $255 - $6,360

Kenya's Chief Justice Evans Gicheru has responded to the report of an official investigation into judicial corruption by urging any judges who think they may be named to resign.

"Those who are corrupt know themselves. The option is theirs, they can get out quietly without causing ripples, but [for] those who want hard-tackling, we are prepared," he told journalists in Nairobi.

"We will wait for them to go, but for those remaining, I'll advise the president to set up a tribunal," he said, adding that "sooner or later the judiciary will be corruption-free."

Rising scale

Earlier this week, the Law Society of Kenya called for all corrupt judges to be sacked after part of the report by Justice Aaron Ringera was made public.

The BBC's Gray Phombeah in Nairobi says the report merely tells most Kenyans what they had long suspected to be case.

Kibaki pledged to end corruption

The judge's price-list and the names of the allegedly corrupt judges are contained in a second volume of the report which has not been published.

The Daily Nation quotes "sources familiar with the details of the report" for its figures.

It says that the cost of bribing a judge rising with their seniority and the severity of the case.

Corrupt magistrates will expect to take a cut of between 10 and 30% of any award they make in civil cases, such as injury or accident claims, the report says.