Paralysis at the Judiciary after hackers take over digital system, lock out staff

The Judiciary is grappling with a suspected digital system infiltration that has grounded most of its operations and interfering with delivery of justice mainly for criminal suspects.

The daring system security breach has put to question the Judiciary’s independence and whether their systems are full-proof baring two years to the 2027 General Elections.

In December last year, Supreme Court Judge Isaac Lenaola raised questions about Kenya’s judicial online systems following an outage at a time when proceedings on the impeachment of then Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua were being heard in court.

Justice Lenaola was speaking at the Regional Conference on the use of AI, Digital and Social Media in Elections in Kenya, held at a hotel in Nairobi, Lenaola questioned why the system procured two years ago went down at such a moment.

The Supreme Court judge went on to invite Kenyans to a reflection on what could happen in 2027, a time when the country will hold its General Elections.

“Imagine what will happen in 2027? I will say no more but think about it,” Justice Lenaola said.

The breach has been attributed to unknown operatives who immobilised judiciary’s digital system on July 10, 2025 just hours after the High Court issued guidelines for setting up of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

It is suspected that the hackers wanted to ensure no application was filed for stay of orders after three judges’ bench issued orders to President William Ruto to procedurally gazette the IEBC chairman and commissioners.

However, after the breach, the hackers did not restore the system.

The IEBC commissioners were sworn in on Thursday July 11, 2025 and Judiciary staff remained locked out of the system, stranded, unable to effectively serve the public that has occasioned a complete paralysis.

The intruders grounded the Case Tracking System (CTS) making most of the judiciary services unavailable.

Chief Registrar of Judiciary (CRJ) Winfrida Mokaya today issued a vague press statement without sharing measures for restoring the services and ensuring the CTS is inaccessible to hackers in the future, alleging the forced takeover of the system and instead, likened it with common global digital system hitches.

“Beginning July 10, 2025, the Judiciary’s public-facing platforms, including the eFiling system and Cause List portal, experienced intermittent access issues due to some external interference that temporarily disrupted network services,” said Mokaya in the statement on Monday.

She claimed that like many digital platforms globally, “our systems are occasionally susceptible to technical disruptions”.

Mokaya said the eFiling system and related services operate within a complex digital infrastructure, and, from time to time, may experience interruptions.

While Mokaya alluded that the failure is ordinary, sources within the Judiciary say hackers had moved quickly to prevent anyone from making an application to stay the orders paving the way for the commissioners’ taking office.

The operatives technically shut down the CTS, making judiciary operations stalled and delivery of justice in disarray.

Mokaya said Judiciary’s technical team “responded swiftly” and initiated a service resumption process, which is still ongoing.

However, Mokaya alleged partial restoration was achieved on Sunday, July 13, 2025, the systems worked for only one hour on Monday with the CRJ saying additional technical challenges occurred on the same day.

“While partial restoration was achieved on Sunday, July 13, 2025, additional technical challenges occurred on Monday, 14th July 2025,” she said.

“Despite these challenges, judicial services have remained accessible through alternative channels provided by the Judiciary.”

The hackers are yet to release the CTS back to the Judiciary, restore the system back to normal operations.

Most of those affected by the system take over and subsequent failure are the criminal suspects and convicts including petty offenders who are unable to get release orders from the courts after paying cash bails and fines respectively. Some have remained in prisons after paying the cash bails and fines.

Mokaya said the Judiciary has endeavoured to ensure the uptime of systems despite occasional challenges, alleging most have been resolved promptly.

She again made an allegation that despite these challenges, judicial services have remained accessible through alternative channels provided by the Judiciary.

Mokaya said some 2,256 criminal cases have been filed and processed during the same period.

However, the suspects in most of the criminal cases are stranded in prisons because they were not able to get release orders after paying cash bails or after the system failure made it impossible for them to deposit the cash bails.

Petty offenders and traffic offenders alike are suffering the same fate because they are not able to pay fines after pleading guilty or being convicted.

“Those of you who followed the Rigathi Gachagua saga will remember that at some point the judiciary’s online filing system went down. “Why did that online platform collapse? Why did the firewalls that we created before 2022 suddenly become vulnerable?” Lenaola posed.

On October 24, 2024 the Judiciary experienced a system outage that affected three key platforms used in legal processes namely the e-filing system, the Case Tracking System (CTS), and the Cause list system. The e-filing system allows legal practitioners to submit documents online, while the CTS tracks case progress and stores court records.