Editor’s note: In this opinion piece, Kimutai Kirui explains how the absurd and rather misplaced demand for police records, investigation diaries, and court files by individuals with no legal stake in proceedings reflects a deeper confusion about the nature of justice itself.
Performative questioning does not advance legal understanding. Criminal justice runs on evidence, procedure, relevance, and due process—not public curiosity.
An OB number is a record of a complaint; a court file is a record of adjudication. Neither is proof of guilt or innocence nor public content for consumption.
Legally, access is governed by relevance, standing, and lawful purpose. Without these, demands for disclosure are curiosity—not entitlement. In short, law is about admissibility and authority. Social media is about attention—and they are not the same thing. Transparency is a constitutional value; indiscriminate disclosure is not.
Why do social media warriors demand OB numbers and court files?
Do they understand what they stand for? One of the more curious features of contemporary public discourse (attention-seeking and trouble-shooting) is the growing tendency for online commentators to demand Occurrence Book (OB) numbers, investigation diaries, police files, and even complete court records as though they possess an automatic entitlement to them merely because a matter has entered the public domain.
The question is worth asking:
Why does a person on social media need an OB number?
And what exactly is a non-party to proceedings planning to do with a court file?
In law, relevance is everything. Curiosity is not.
The legal function of an OB number
The Occurrence Book (OB) is the official police station diary. An Occurrence Book (OB) is not a public relations document, a social media exhibit, or a public referendum on credibility. An OB number is a legal reference that anchors reporting, investigation, and oversight.
It confirms formal reporting for the complainant, provides the first chronological record for investigators, and enables audit and supervision by oversight bodies such as the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the Internal Affairs Unit and the National Police Service.
In Kenya, OB systems are increasingly digitised to improve integrity, traceability, and transparency. It is the official and permanent record maintained at a police station, documenting reports, complaints, arrests, incidents, and investigative actions in chronological sequence.
The OB serves several important legal functions:
- Establishing the precise date and time a complaint was made.
- Creating the first formal record of an alleged offence.
- Assisting investigators in tracking enquiries and operational decisions.
- Supporting the chain of custody of evidence and exhibits.
- Providing prosecutors with proof that a complaint was formally lodged and investigated.
- Enabling complainants to follow up on the progress of investigations through a unique reference number.
For investigators, prosecutors, and defence counsel, the OB is often an evidentiary anchor. Entries may be compared against witness statements, police testimony, forensic findings, and other documentary evidence to test consistency, credibility, and chronology. Indeed, OB extracts frequently form part of the broader investigation diary—a record whose purpose is evidentiary, not performative. An OB number therefore exists to facilitate criminal investigations and judicial proceedings.
“It does not exist to satisfy social media curiosity, settle online arguments, or furnish digital spectators with material for content creation!”
The investigation file is not a public entertainment pack
The police investigation file is a structured evidentiary record assembled during the course of an inquiry.
The police file has sub-files
Depending on the nature of the case, it may contain the following:
- Initial incident and crime reports.
- Documentary exhibits, photographs, and sketches.
- Expert reports, including medical, forensic, and laboratory analyses.
- Witness statements.
- Statements recorded from suspects.
- Investigation diaries and OB extracts.
- Charge sheets.
- Exhibit inventories.
- Investigating officers’ recommendations and case summaries.
- Internal correspondence relating to the enquiries.
These materials exist to assist investigators, prosecutors, defence counsel, and courts in the administration of justice. They are not compiled for public consumption. Nor Are They Designed To Satisfy The Demands Of Self-appointed Online Investigators Whose Jurisdiction Extends No Further Than A Comment Section.
The court file: A judicial record, not a social media trophy
The same misunderstanding often arises with court files.
A court file is the official record of legal proceedings.
It contains pleadings, motions, affidavits, evidence, transcripts, rulings, orders, and judgments filed before a court of competent jurisdiction.
Its function is simple: to facilitate adjudication.
In civil matters, court files may contain:
- Plaints and petitions.
- Defences and responses.
- Witness statements.
- Documentary evidence.
- Interlocutory applications.
- Judgements and settlement agreements.
In criminal proceedings, files may contain the following:
- Charge sheets and charging documents.
- Warrants and search authorisations.
- Bail and bond records.
- Police and forensic reports.
- Witness testimony.
- Trial transcripts.
- Convictions, acquittals, and sentencing records.
The file exists for the administration of justice. It is not a collector’s item for social media litigants.
‘Public’ is not the same as ‘public access’
A matter may be of public interest without every underlying document becoming public property.
This distinction appears increasingly lost in contemporary discourse.
The mere fact that allegations have been made does not entitle every commentator to witness statements.
The existence of a complaint does not create a right to investigation diaries.
The filing of a case does not transform court records into social media exhibits.
Law recognises standing, relevance, privilege, confidentiality, evidentiary integrity, data protection and procedural fairness. Social media recognises none of these things.
Consequently, the craving for OB numbers or court files reveals less about transparency and more about a misunderstanding of legal process and more so control.
A useful legal question
Police and court administrators, as custodians of such records, are trained to apply a threshold inquiry before disclosure: what is the legal basis, relevance, and legitimate purpose of the request?
Further, all requests must be made formally and in writing, in line with established procedural and administrative requirements governing access to official records.
- For what purpose?
- What issue is in dispute?
- What fact requires proof?
- What legal right is being vindicated?
- What proceedings are contemplated?
- What legitimate interest is engaged?
Without satisfactory answers to those questions, demands for OB numbers and court files often amount to little more than performative inquisitiveness disguised as accountability.
The law does not generally compel disclosure merely because someone is curious.
Elsewhere, under the right of access to information, a requester is generally not required to state the purpose of the request but must provide sufficient particulars to enable the information to be identified, retrieved, and processed in accordance with the law. This is consistent with Article 35 of the Constitution of Kenya (2010) and the Access to Information Act, 2016, which require that requests be adequately described to allow the relevant public body to locate and respond to the information sought.
The difference between accountability and spectacle
Transparency remains a constitutional value.
Accountability remains a democratic necessity.
Access to information remains an important right.
But accountability is not synonymous with unlimited disclosure, and public interest is not synonymous with public entitlement.
An OB number is not proof of guilt.
A police file is not a public relations document.
A court file is not a social media trophy.
An investigation diary is not content.
The justice system operates through evidence, procedure, jurisdiction, and lawful process—not through online demands for documents by individuals who have neither a legal role in the proceedings nor a demonstrable interest recognised by law.
Before demanding an OB number or a court file, perhaps the more legally relevant question is this:
What Recognisable Legal Purpose Would That Disclosure Serve?
If the answer is none, then the demand belongs not in the realm of law but in the theatre of performative outrage!
The author is Kimutai Kirui, a Kenyan political analyst and human rights activist known for his work in Uasin Gishu County, where he has championed justice in cases ranging from police brutality to land disputes affecting widows.
Views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the editorial position of news9.africa.
Discussion about this post