The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has filed a lawsuit blocking the government’s plan to speed up the processing of land titles online. LSK sued the Ministry of Lands following the April 8 order that was issued to digitise land documents in all registries in Kenya. The move is meant to make it easier for the land ministry to give ownership titles, especially on property that is communally-held.

According to Reuters, the LSK says its decision to file the lawsuit was based on the fact that the initiative was launched without proper consultation, which puts the process at a risk of being corrupted as well as being reversed by successive governments unless it has a backing from the legislative. In addition, the LSK also said that the government needs to carry out consultations with both lawyers and surveyors regarding the process.

Speaking on the matter on Monday, Allen Gichuhi, LSK’s president, said: “They are putting the cart before the horse.” According to Gichuhi, digitising all land documents at this point could invalidate the thousands of land ownership cases that are currently pending in courts because contested titles could be deemed authentic once they are digitised. The country is currently undergoing land reform changes that are meant to enable people to register and verify title deeds on the Internet by moving decades of old records online.

Farida Karoney, Kenya’s Lands Minister, said that digitising the land documents would eradicate corruption and guarantee more Kenyans their land rights. Generally, communities in Kenya own about two-thirds of the land but lack formal titles which make corruption rife as corrupt individuals can lease or sell the community land without their knowledge. Digitising land registration documents using blockchain technology would help to stop such dubious activities by capping loopholes that allow for the creation of duplicate titles that are then used in land ownership transfers without the knowledge of the rightful owner.

According to Karoney, her ministry is currently working together with the national parliament to legalise regulations that would allow for lands – with more focus on community-owned property – to be easily titled. She went on to say that the regulations will authorise the digitisation of land records which is essential in the creation of an online registry that will fast-track processing of titles and verify ownership. Speaking to the Reuters, Karoney said: “We have a slight setback, because it’s a matter before the court.”

Gichuhi, however, said that the online transfer process for the land documents has been moving at a snail speed making the land transaction process lengthy as it took several days to a few weeks in the past: “Previously it used to take about three weeks (to transfer a title) but now it takes a month or more.”

While LSK’s lawsuit is still awaiting hearing from the courts, Karoney said that the country is researching on how to move its land registry to a blockchain platform. So far, Rwanda is among the few African countries that have been able to successfully move all their land records online and is currently using blockchain technology to digitise its land registry process.