•Fed High Court Chief Judge’s directive on political cases is heartwarming
If note, the new legal year has coincided with the season of politics. Considering the importance of the courts in resolving the disputes that accompany contests for elective positions, it is reassuring that the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Abdul Kafarati (CJ), is taking proactive steps. The CJ has directed the courts to fast track all political cases pending before them, even as he gave them a marching order not to grant any ex parte application on political cases.
The CJ made known the directives at the special court session to mark the beginning of the 2018-19 legal year. We agree with the chief judge that our courts must do all that is in their powers to be seen as neutral in the 2019 political contests. Seeking for ex parte orders is clearly one of the ways politicians use to ambush their opponents, especially on the eve of an election. So, we agree with the CJ that for every politically related case, the opponent should be put on notice for a fairer adjudication.
In the words of the CJ: “controversies in political cases can be reduced when the court takes a decision after hearing all the parties in the case.” We urge all judges to take the advice seriously to avoid the temptation by politicians to expose them to accusation of bias. According to the CJ, he issued a circular on this directive during the vacation in “an attempt to forestall any hiccups and the blame on the court by the political gladiators.”
The CJ also issued another very important directive, “that all political cases that may affect any of the parties which are still pending in any of our courts be concluded without further waste of time to afford all candidates the opportunity to pursue their political ambitions.” He gave the judges up to the end of October to conclude all pre-election cases before them. While we agree that political cases should be dealt with expeditiously, we urge the courts to also deal with the 191,766 cases pending in the Federal High Courts across the country.
According to the chief judge, “at the beginning of this legal year, we have about 191,766 cases still pending in our courts.” He noted that within the last legal year, the Federal High Court recorded 17,076 new cases, while it disposed of 15,076 cases. A comparison between the new cases for the year and the disposed cases within the year shows a net difference of 2,000 cases. Perhaps it is the accumulation of such net differences that make up the staggering 191,766 cases pending across the Federal High Courts in the country?
This huge gap explains why some cases last up to 10 years in the high courts and sometimes as long as 30 years by the time it ends up at the Supreme Court. From the statistics supplied by the chief judge, even if no new cases are filed, it will take the courts a little above 12 years to dispose of the pending cases. Considering that new cases join the queue, there is the urgent need for fundamental structural adjustments in the judicial sector to gift Nigeria an efficient justice system.
The need for urgency in the disposal of politically related cases as well as criminal cases cannot be overemphasised. A high level of efficiency is also important in dealing with commercial and civil cases. So, we urge the judiciary and relevant stakeholders to work on the general level of efficiency of our courts, and demand that judges must abhor ex parte orders and delays in politically related cases as directed by the chief judge.