‎As New Legal Year Begins

Executive Briefing

The new legal year provides the judiciary with the opportunity to redeem its battered image‎, writes Davidson Iriekpen

After about eight weeks of vacation, courts all over the country at both the federal and state levels have resumed for the 2017/2018 legal year. Like every other resumption, the judges who used the period of the vacation to cool off, have come back to face daunting challenges.

Apart from the numerous applications and motions awaiting their attention, the judges are again returning to work at a time the entire judiciary is faced with credibility problem.

There are a number of cases that need to be urgently disposed of and the resolution of these cases rest squarely with how fast the courts can expeditiously determine them.

Over the years, many Nigerians have lost confidence in the courts not only because of the slow pace at which justice is delivered but due to illogical, incoherent and sometimes incongruous decisions and judgments the judges often dispense.

First, as the new legal year begins, many Nigerians would want to see a situation where judicial authorities led by the National Judicial Council (NJC), tackle the incessant conflicting and contradictory orders and judgments especially by courts of coordinate jurisdiction. Not only have these orders and judgments caused Nigeria huge embarrassment, they also pose serious danger to the country’s jurisprudence.

Last year, Nigerians were thoroughly embarrassed with the way and manner the Federal High Court handled the crises in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the tax allegation against the Governor of Abia State, Dr, Okezie Ikpeazu. In the cases involving the PDP, the courts in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja were notoriously fighting for supremacy and churning out conflicting orders to the parties. Even when the court in Port Harcourt had settled the case, another court in Abuja refused to abide with the decision. The same applied to the case against Ikpeazu where the courts in Abuja and Owerri were involved in an unnecessary tussle.

 With the country gearing up to enter another round of political activities, litigants want the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen and the NJC, not only to caution but to device a new strategy to effectively monitor judges at all levels in order to weed out those who have caused the judiciary embarrassment for sanity and confidence to return to the all-important third arm of government.

As the courts resume for the new legal year, many analysts would wish to see a situation where judges will expeditiously determine cases before them. Currently, it is believed that it takes over 10 to 15 years for a case to go from the high court to the Supreme Court.

Apart from political cases that are often treated with utmost dispatch from the high court to the Supreme Court partly due to the fact that politicians are able to move the court quickly, other cases such as criminal, commercial and civil matters take up to a minimum of 10 years to get to the apex court and be concluded.

Checks revealed that while it takes four to six years to conclude a case at the high courts whether at the state or federal level, it takes almost the same number of years for the same case to go through the Court of Appeal upon appeal. At the Supreme Court, it may take far up to eight to ten years.

To quicken justice delivery and reduce the pressure on the justices of the Court of Appeal in the country, many lawyers have suggested that the Federal High Court be sub-divided to hear political, criminal, business/commercial, probate and land etc particularly in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt where there are more cases . as it is done at the Lagos State High Court. They believe that this would enable each court to move faster in the determination of the cause before it.

Analysts have also called for an increase in the number of courtrooms at the Court of Appeal in Lagos from the two that are currently sitting to four or five to cope with the volume of appeals emanating from the federal and state high courts.

Therefore, as another legal year begins, they want judges to prove to Nigerians that they are not responsible for the slow and frustrating judicial proceedings in the country. They advised the judges to always stand up to counsel, especially those for the defendants who are in the habit of employing tricks to frustrate trials.

For instance, a cursory look at some recent cause list of the Federal High Court in Lagos shows that there are hundreds of cases filed over six and seven years ago that are still at the preliminary stages. This, according to analysts, is one of the challenges facing the judiciary in Nigeria today. While some believe that most of these cases are stalled by frivolous applications mostly by the defendants in the suits, others put the blame on the judges for not standing up to counsel who are in the habit of doing this.

 Some times, if it is not an application to challenge the jurisdiction of the court, it is for a stay of proceedings or other interlocutory applications. In some cases, it could even be an outright petition or complaint against the trial judge for the case to be transferred from a particular court to another. All these are aimed at delaying proceeding and frustrating justice delivery and give the Nigerians judicial system a bad image and reputation. This is why as the courts resume for a new legal year, many analysts would want to see a situation where judges would demonstrate to Nigerians that indeed it is possible to get quick justice in the country.

 Another challenge the courts will face as they resume for the 2017/2018 legal year, is the burden from allegation of corruption. The third arm of government is an indispensable tool in the anti-graft war. Hence, it is taken for granted that in a society buffeted by corruption, a courageous, independent, unbiased and financially autonomous judiciary is a most needed bulwark against the continued reign of the monster of corruption and graft in the country.

Many have argued that sadly, Nigeria has not been particularly fortunate in its drive to evolve a functional democratic governance since 1999 that is able to deliver a just society, principally because of the greed of its political class, and the attendant impunity accentuated by an ineffective judiciary. This has set a lot of analysts wondering if a corruption-infested institution can actually purge the country of the malaise.

 Two independent surveys on crime and corruption in the country recently revealed that the judiciary is being irretrievably destroyed by corruption. The survey shocked many Nigerians when it named the judiciary as one of the institutions where there is massive corruption. According to it, “Nigerian courts of law receive the biggest and highest bribes from citizens among all institutions in where corruption is rampant.” Though it particularly stressed that bribery in the third arm of government was less frequent than in many other agencies and other organisations, most of the respondents to the survey admitted that they have paid the biggest bribes to the courts in huge transactions.

 It also disclosed that among public officials, police personnel were most frequently alleged to request the payment of bribes, making criminal justice administration difficult.
Another advice to the judges as they resume for the new legal year, is to protect their judgments from leakage. All over the world, court judgments are supposed to be highly confidential and restricted until they are delivered.

When judgments are to be delivered, people are supposed to be on tenterhooks, waiting with bated breadth for what would be the final word from the judge. Unfortunately, this is not the case in some courts today. Before some judgments are delivered, either the petitioners, applicants or respondents would have started rejoicing and boasting based the assurances he or she might have received from the court.

> Another critical area where many observers want the courts to focus on is on the allegation that judges inadvertently shield politicians and other government officials charged with corruption from prosecution. Many analysts have argued that since corruption has been identified as one of the greatest problems confronting the country, the judiciary needs to play a critical role to eradicate it. They believe that the general lack of courage in the Nigerian judiciary to deal with corruption frontally is responsible for the upsurge of the malaise.

Incidentally, the courts are resuming at a time when the Chief Justice Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, has threatened not to tolerate any excesses that will bring the judiciary to disrepute. Since he has another three years to spend as the helmsman of the judiciary in the country, many Nigerians are anxiously looking forward to seeing him transform the third arm of government into a stronger, independent, assertive and politically neutral institution, knowing full well that success or failure of the democratic system depends significantly on a vibrant judiciary and its capacity to protect all interests without fear of favour.

At a time the country is seriously looking for foreign investments, many Nigerians want the judiciary to sit up and assist the government by fast-tracking justice delivery and embarking on confidence-building with the required zeal.

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 Another advice to the judges as they resume for the new legal year, is to protect their judgments from leakage

 Onnoghen… rolled out new measures to stop judicial corruption