This section looks at what happens after a complaint has been filed against anyone.The accused person is require to appear in court either by issuing of sermons or by issue of a warrant of arrest.Upon receiving a complaint and having signed the charge, a magistrate may issue either a summons or a warrant to compel the attendance of the accused person before a subordinate court having jurisdiction to try the offence alleged to have been committed.Here we are going to look at summons in particular
Form and contents of summons.
Every summons issued by a court should be in writing, in duplicate, signed and sealed by the presiding officer of the court or by such other officer as the High Court may from time
to time by rule direct.Every summon should also be directed to the person summoned and
it should require him to appear at a time and place to be therein appointed before a court having jurisdiction to deal with the charge, and should state shortly the offence with which the person against whom it is issued is charged.
Service of summons
Every summons should be served either by a police officer, an officer of the court issuing it or by such other person as the court may direct, and should, if practicable, be served personally on the person summoned by delivering or tendering to him one of the duplicates of the summons. Every person on whom a summons is so served should, if required by the serving officer, sign a receipt therefore on the back of the other duplicate.
Service when person summoned cannot be found.
Where a person summoned cannot be found, the summons may be served by leaving one of the duplicates for him with an adult member of his family or with his servant residing with him or with his employer; and the person with whom the summons is so left should, if required by the serving officer, sign a receipt on the back of the other duplicate.
Procedure when service cannot be effected as before provided.
What happens if the above methods of serving sermons doesnt work and the person summoned cannot be found nor can any person who knows him be reached?In such a situation,the serving officer should affix one of the duplicates of the summons to some conspicuous part of the house or homestead in which the person summoned ordinarily resides and thereupon the summons shall be deemed to have been duly served.
Service on servant of Government.
Where the person summoned is in the active service of the Government, the court issuing the summons should ordinarily send it in duplicate to the head of the office in which that person is employed, and the head should cause the summons to be served to the employee summoned and should return it to the court under his signature with the endorsement required by that section, and the signature shall be evidence of the service.
Service on company
Service of a summons on an incorporated company or other body corporate may be effected by serving it on the secretary, local manager or other principal officer of the corporation or by registered
letter addressed to the principal officer of the corporation in Kenya at the registered office of the company or body corporate; and in the latter case service shall be deemed to have been effected when the letter would arrive in ordinary course of post.
Service outside local limits of jurisdiction.
When a court desires that a summons issued by it shall be
served at a place outside the local limits of its jurisdiction, it shall send
the summons in duplicate to a magistrate within the local limits of whose
jurisdiction the person summoned resides or is to be there served.