•Lauds creation of special courts
After a sober reflection on last year’s raid on the official residences of Judges by operatives of the Department of State Security Service (DSS), President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday, in Abuja explained that his administration is not out to intimidate the judiciary.
The president who made the explanation at the annual All Nigeria Judges’ Conference solicited the cooperation of the judiciary in the fight against corruption.
While expressing regret over delays in the justice delivery system, he commended the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, for the establishment of special courts to hear corruption cases.
“For the judiciary, the public expects fairness, impartiality and speed in the administration of justice. Regrettably, court cases can drag on for years and years, sometimes decades without resolution. I need only mention land cases in Lagos to illustrate my point.”
He lamented that there were huge backlogs of cases waiting to be dispensed especially at the appellate levels and tasked the judiciary to embark on reforms that would eliminate the seemingly endless delays in settling what to the layman were apparently simple cases.
He said: “The knock-on efforts of these delays and dis-continuities range from loss of confidence in the judicial system to over-crowding of prisons. This is an area your lordships should pay close attention to in your efforts at reforming the system.
“Again, litigants expect that higher courts should endeavour to harmonize their rulings. There are contradictory decisions of superior courts on the same subject matter in cases where facts are substantially the same without a clear attempt in subsequent cases to distinguish the earlier cases. This lack of clarity leads to serious confusion to the lower courts.”
Buhari described the theme of the conference, “Strengthening Judicial integrity and the rule of law” as timely, adding that a democratic system “such as ours cannot survive or prosper without strict adherence to the rule of law.”
He noted that the prime purpose of any government was to regulate social relations within its territorial jurisdiction.
“Without the rule of law the government will degenerate into dictatorship or anarchy. The theme you have chosen this year keys in with our administration’s resolve to strengthen the three arms of government to effectively fulfill their constitutional obligations,” he said.
He maintained that one of the objectives of his administration was to combat graft and other forms of corruption so endemic in the public life: ‘We require the close cooperation of other arms of government.
“My lords, earlier this year the judiciary came under investigation. Let me again assure the judicial community, this action taken by the executive was in no way a prelude to usurping the powers of the National Judicial Council (NJC) or aimed at intimidating the judiciary. Executive and legislative officials were also investigated
“I am aware that the majority of judicial officers are learned and incorruptible and day-in-day-out acting in the best spirit of their oath of office.
“At the same time, I am quite aware of the problems besetting the judiciary including under-funding, inadequate personnel and absence of modern technological aids.
“Bearing these in mind, this administration increased allocation to the judiciary from N70 billion to N100 billion in the 2017 budget. A similar figure has been proposed for 2018.
“Mr. Chief Justice, our administration’s commitment is to accord the judiciary its constitutional rights.
“I therefore commend your recent decision to ask all judges at lower courts to provide you with a comprehensive list of all corruption and financial crimes in order to designate special courts to handle them. I support your action and the public is awaiting the results of this initiative.”
The CJN assured the president that the NJC would continually ensure, through rigorous screening and painstaking appointment procedures, that the best materials, in terms of learning and character, got appointed to the Bench.
He said: “The judiciary has been in the eye of the storm in recent times, due largely to the activities of a few bad eggs in our midst.
“The public today has a very wrong perception of the judiciary, and this is rather unfortunate. We have a duty to change the wrong perception and narratives.
“In my view, a good place to start this change is the lower courts – the magistracy and customary courts. These courts are the first contact most citizens have with the judiciary, and most times, the only contact they would have.
“I therefore urge the heads of various courts to pay close attention to the activities of the lower courts within your jurisdiction. Proper supervision and feedback mechanisms are imperative if we most succeed.”
Justice Onnoghen described prison congestion as worrisome and an embarrassment:
“We must partner with the executive, represented by the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to curb this menace.
“Again, close supervision and frequent visits of heads of courts to prisons within their jurisdictions, and synergising with attorney general of each state are veritable steps to a lasting solution.”
He said delay in justice delivery system was an unacceptable situation, which inevitably dictated the “need for a thorough and comprehensive reform of our justice sector to ensure access to justice at affordable costs and within a reasonable time.
“Such reform agenda must of necessity require the cooperation of the three arms of government, namely, the executive, legislature and the judiciary, as well as other relevant stakeholders.
“Furthermore, internal cohesion and stability of the justice sector will not be complete without the contribution and input of legal practitioners and the general public.
“In this light, Committee of the Board of Governors of the National Judicial Institute on Reform Agenda recently considered salient areas that will set our judiciary to rank among the best in the world.
“Among other things, the committee made strong recommendations for speedy dispensation of justice, increment of budgetary allocation to the judiciary, regular capacity building programmes for judges, training of professional court administrators, financial independence for state judiciaries and security for judges.”
He maintained that it was wrong to generalise that all judicial officers were corrupt:
“It is an established fact that the judiciary in Nigeria is as good as the best anywhere in the world.
“Indeed, this fact can be readily corroborated by such countries as The Gambia, Botswana and Seychelles where some of our judges have served meritoriously and without blemish.”