Disciplinary Procedures and Justice for Accused Officers: A Case of the Administration Police Service in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

It had been observed that a number of Administration Police officers that had been subjected to disciplinary proceedings had appealed in court the outcomes of the disciplinary process citing procedural unfairness that resulted to unjust outcomes. The purpose of this study was to explore the nexus between disciplinary procedures and justice in the Administration Police Service. The study was conducted in Nairobi City County, Kenya and was anchored on theory of justice by John Rawls. A mixed research design of cross-sectional survey design and exploratory research design were employed on a target population of 679.The sample size was calculated using Yamane sampling formula generating a sample size of 251 officers that were requested to fill the questionnaires. This was followed by multi-stage sampling that included stratified random sampling at the sub county level to get the actual participants in the study for each stratum. Purposive sampling was used to get 8 key informants two groups of 6-8 police officers totaling to 14 police officers that had been subjected to disciplinary proceedings to participate in focus group discussion. The study established that majority of presiding officers were not independent in making ruling and are not experience in application of their discretionary power in orderly room proceedings. The study determined that there was need for change on disciplinary procedures in APS and recommended that presiding officers be trained and retrained on disciplinary process.