Category: Commentaries

Nothing perhaps can illustrate the disillusionment regarding the delivery of justice in the country as the reported lamentation of Mr. Justice Okechukwu Okeke who recently retired from the Federal High Court. Speaking at a reception on his retirement, Justice Okeke informed his audience that 35,000 cases were pending in his court when he was presiding at the Federal High Court. He said he learnt that the number has since gone up to about 70,000 since he left; yet, only one judge still presides over the cases.

Justice Okeke is just one of many judges to have gone through similar experiences. The learned judge hit the nail on its head by his simple deduction that the increase in the number of cases pending in law courts is attributable to shortage of judges and high rate of litigations. Obviously that inference is begging for official acknowledgment as a reason for the slow machinery of justice dispensation. But a situation whereby a judge battles with 35,000 cases is a recipe for corruption. So those who believe that the Nigerian judiciary has become tainted with the pervasive corruption in the land have a strong factor in their favour. When that factor is laced with the cumbersome processes of court; the often cramp court-rooms and court environment; the absence of facilities, the unreliability of power supply (both from the PHCN and the generators), the malfunctioning air conditioners, the tedious long-hand recording of proceedings by the judges; the non-availability of legal research assistants and the predisposition of the judges, as human beings, to these looming factors, the result is anybody’s guess but certainly in dissonance with smooth administration of justice.

It is notable that the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar is all too familiar with these scenarios in court. She went through them on her way to the Supreme Court which in itself is heavily saddled with pending matters. Justice Aloma has had several occasions to speak publicly about the problems of the judiciary, vis-à-vis her own vision, which includes zero-tolerance for corruption and un-productivity. She recently told judicial officers: “As you are well aware and as I have reiterated on so many occasions, we have a vision of a justice system that is simple, fast and efficient. It must be responsive to the needs and yearnings of the citizenry. If the public loses respect for the Bench, the society may gradually be creeping back to the days of jungle justice, as less and less persons and institutions will be willing to entrust their disputes to us”.

Speaking at the official commissioning of the permanent site of the Appeal Court, Ibadan last month, Mrs. Mukhtar said Nigerian courts, like many others in developing countries of the world, struggle to cope with situations like absence of standard libraries and out-dated legal infrastructure. Quite appropriately, she summed it all up with a verdict that, for courts to discharge their role of dispute settlement and interpretation of law effectively, they must not be denied of requisite infrastructure, expertise and technology.

Justice Mukhtar has not been alone in seeking to unravel the delay in administering justice in the country. Former Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta had also pinpointed corruption as a factor. Justice Auta is perhaps more blunt when he accused the police, lawyers, prison officials and fellow judges of contributing to the slow pace of criminal justice delivery by acts of omission or commission. “Corruption is the only reason that can explain the snail’s speed at which the administration of criminal justice is moving in Nigeria.”

The CJN certainly cannot be found wanting in articulating the problems of that all-important sector she heads; and consequently seeking to solve them. In practical terms, the challenge ahead is far greater. Surely, Justice Mukhtar did not create the loopholes afflicting the judiciary and thus causing the slow grinding of the wheel of justice. But if after all said and done, there is little or no change for the better, who else can one blame but the Chief Justice? All cases are important but criminal matters, which often involve the liberty of the accused, are more important. Many such cases have been pending in court, for one reason or the other, for too long. The CJN ought to be particularly interested because the effect, locally, is that of justice denied – following the dictum that justice delayed is justice denied. Internationally, such delays have deeper implications, one of which is the clog it presents in attracting enduring Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country. Justice Mukhtar may not be a fund keeper for the judiciary, but she is a fund manager and adviser. She has a role to play in directing appropriate expenditure first, towards meeting the infrastructure deficits she has identified as the bane of quick justice dispensation; and, not being directly in charge of all aspects of the judiciary, particularly in the states, she needs to advise the various governments accordingly.

The judiciary is continually under scrutiny and test of performance and reliability. Fortunately for the institution, it has continued to survive as the hope of Nigerians despite the serious reputational bashing it has also suffered in the recent past. As a woman and the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mrs. Mukhtar should strive to make a difference regarding court rules and procedure. There must be a way of ensuring that judges have research assistants to enable them sift the whiff from the chaff of legal submissions.

There must be a way around the ready exploitation of countless loopholes by which some lawyers cover up their inadequacy or unpreparedness by seeking and obtaining adjournments endlessly. There must be a way of managing epileptic power supply to at least achieve a minimum condition of ventilation and safety for the courts. The Chief Justice has admitted on some occasions that many Nigerians laws are archaic, amounting to no more than relics of colonisation. Given that law reform is slow and often expensive, there must be a way to identify the more inglorious of such archaic laws and bring them to civilization; or dispense with them altogether. Importantly, there must be a way- indeed conscious effort must be exerted-to ensure fairness of trial, and accordance of due respect to accused persons in the course of trial.

Nothing must be allowed to trample on section 36(5) of the 1999 Constitution, to the effect that an accused person is presumed innocent until his guilt is proven by a court of competent jurisdiction. Justice Mukhtar has a holistic assignment of correcting these and other ills afflicting the judiciary and thus sustaining the notion that the courts are indeed the last hope of Nigerians. However, running Nigeria’s judiciary in public like the CJN does with her public statements of late seems at variance with the standards expected of that otherwise normally conservative arm of government. These public pronouncements are reminiscent of the military style era of the 1970s when the whiplash of ‘sack with immediate effect’ was visited on the civil service with its horrendous and damaging effects. Is this the future we want for the judiciary?

When you threaten your judges in public with fire and brimstone rather than through the process of administrative circulars, the discerning public is left wondering what the motives were.

The challenges are not going to be solved through knee-jerk approach, but through articulately thought-through solutions rather than public statements about judicial cleansing that would have the unnecessary result of putting the judges on edge.

• Nelson, Attorney At Law, wrote from Lagos.