Tag: delays

How to achieve quicker justice delivery is theme of the seventh annual business luncheon by the firm of SPA Ajibade & Co, reports JOSEPH JIBUEZE.

How can delays in civil justice delivery be reduced? This is a question that has begged for answers for years. When Justice Olusola Williams was appointed a judge of the Lagos State High Court in 2001, she was assigned a 36-year-old that was still pending in court.

She was one of the speakers at the at the seventh annual business luncheon by the law firm of SPA Ajibade & Co in Lagos, with the theme: The future of Legal Practice in Nigeria: Eliminating delays in Civil Justice delivery.

A Supreme Court Justice, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, who chaired the event, and the guest speaker, a former Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Odein Ajugomobia (SAN) listed ways to eliminate delays in justice delivery.

Kekere-Ekun said in addition to more use of information technology and computerisation of court processes, there is the need for a new attitude.

She said: “While the full computerisation of the court system nationwide will provide some much needed succour…how do the improvements in case management at the trial courts translate to the appellate courts?

“I am of the firm view that in order to achieve significant improvement in civil justice delivery, there needs to be a major attitudinal change, which must start with members of the Bar who are the litigants’ first point of contact in the litigation process.

“No matter how many judges are appointed or how many times the civil procedure rules are amended, the situation will remain the same unless we change our mindset,” she said.

Besides, Justice Kekere-Ekun believes the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction should be restricted to prevent situations where interlocutory appeals takes years to determine while the main suit is pending at the lower courts.

“I strongly believe that there is an urgent need for constitutional amendment to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in certain respects.

“For instance, interlocutory decisions, and cases where there are concurrent findings of fact by the two lower courts and there is no dispute as to the law, should terminate at the Court of Appeal. Decisions in governorship elections should also terminate at the Court of Appeal,” she said.

Justice Kekere-Ekun urged the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to enforce the Bar’s ethics and “provide the required leadership.”

“Where a client has a bad case, it is unethical to institute an action in court merely to frustrate his opponents and delay the fulfilment of an obligation,” she said.

Ajumogobia identified preliminary objections, frivolous arguments, unnecessary adjournments, lack of adherence to time limits and poor service of court processes on parties as some causes of delays.

Others, he said, are incessant amendment of court documents in the course of trial, poor case management by judges, abuse of the right of appeal and poor use of punitive cost against lawyers who cause deliberate delays.

According to Ajumogobia, some clients literally pay lawyers to delay proceedings, which is against the profession’s ethics.

“Delay serves the defendant well when he has no defence or simply needs to buy time to answer a complaint and is therefore only interested in putting off the anticipated final decision by the court for as long as possible,” he said.

He said while delays in civil justice cannot be completely eliminated, it can be reduced in the profession’s common interest. “I am suggesting that this depends much more on us at the Bar than it does on our colleagues on the Bench who have shed their partisanship and can only decide the cases and controversies that we place before them.

“As long as we choose (and it is always a conscious choice by counsel) to deliberately exploit the existence of constitutional lapses or the inevitable and necessary flexibility of procedural rules, curbing delay in civil justice will remain an illusion,” Ajumogobia said.

Justice Williams, who successfully disposed of the 36-year-old case, said the Bar has a big role to play in achieving quicker justice delivery. She added that the problem will remain “as long as we continue to see delay as a tool. It all has to do with our attitude.”

She advocated adequate training for court staff, continuous training for judges, intensive training for new judges, and the need to boost the morale of judicial officers.

She said situations where judges are exposed to assault will not held the cause of justice. “I was assaulted in Ekiti State. If one judge is assaulted, then every judge has been assaulted. But where was the Bar when all of this happened? We get the legal system we deserve,” she asked.

According to her, delay is costly and clogs the wheel of progress. Even lawyers who depose to false affidavits must be panalised. “Bad practice should be criminalised,” she said.

Lagos Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice Ade Ipaye urged judges to adopt a no-nonsense approach to case management by not granting frivolous applications.

He urged the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke (SAN) to set up a commission to resolve the issue of jurisdiction and at what point it should be raised.

Whatever recommendations are reached and agreed on, he said, should be made part of the Constitution.

Mr Ademola Akinrele (SAN) said arbitration matters should terminate at the High Court where ADR is used. The issue of jurisdiction, he said, should be taken with the main case to avoid delays. Judges should learn to ignore irrelevances and move on with cases.

Also, the requirements for award of SAN rank which requires a certain number of appearances at the appellates courts should be jettisoned, as it encourages lawyers to pursue appeals even when frivolous.

Judges, he said, should be appointed from diverse areas of law, such as from the academia, among others, adding that diligent counsel and a proactive bench would help speed up justice delivery.

The organiser, Dr Babatunde Ajibade (SAN), said it will take everyone pulling in the same direction if delays are to be reduced.

On why luncheon was organised, he said: “It’s our little way of putting something back into the profession. We are passionate and feel very strongly about it. We think we should improve the environment in which legal business is conducted.”

Other speakers included Justice Samuel Candide-Johnson, who represented Chief Judge of Lagos, Justice Funmilayo Atilade; Mrs Olabisi Soyebo (SAN), former dean, faculty of law, University of Lagos Prof Oyelowo Oyewo; Mr Zik Obi II, a senior lecturer at the Nigerian Law School Mr Nelson Ogbuanya, among others.