The death of Julia Njoki has opened a deep wound in Kenya’s justice system, with growing anger directed at Resident Magistrate Immaculate Deche.
Her decision to set a cash bail of Ksh 50,000 for a 24-year-old mother of two, arrested during peaceful Saba Saba protests, shows a serious lack of compassion and fairness.
Njoki could not afford that amount, and because of Deche’s ruling, she remained behind bars, where she lost her life under disturbing and questionable conditions. Instead of showing mercy, Deche chose to stick to a cold legal script that ignored the realities poor Kenyans face every day.
What makes this worse is that this is not an isolated case. There are reports that Deche has a pattern of dishing out harsh and unreasonable decisions, like the case where a person had to attend court seven times without a plea being entered.
That kind of negligence not only wastes people’s time but damages their lives. This is not what justice is supposed to look like. It’s supposed to protect the weak, not punish them for being poor.
Lawyer Nelson Havi was right to call out Magistrate Deche publicly. He said clearly that by setting an unaffordable bail, she enabled a system that led directly to Julia Njoki’s death.
And he didn’t stop there he tied her actions to the wider rot in the government and judiciary, calling it part of the “unjust theatrics of William Ruto’s murderous regime.”
That statement, shared widely online, reflects what many Kenyans feel, that the courts are no longer safe places for ordinary citizens seeking fairness.
Magistrate Deche’s role in this tragedy cannot be hidden behind technical legal excuses. She had a choice. She could have considered Njoki’s background, the non-violent nature of her protest, and her financial status before setting bail.
But she didn’t. Now a young woman is dead, and Deche walks free, protected by a broken system. If this kind of conduct goes unpunished, then the courts will continue to be places of fear, not justice.
What Julia Njoki needed was a fair hearing and a judge with a conscience. What she got was a magistrate who treated her like a case number instead of a human being.
