CJN, JUSTICE MARIAM ALOMA MUKHTAR
SAN FRANCISCO, September 23, (THEWILL) – The Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar has made a case for strict adherence to the principle of separation of powers by the various arms of government in the country.
Speaking at the swearing-in of new Senior Advocates of Nigeria in Abuja, which also marked the commencement of a new legal year on Monday, the CJN also lamented that the judicial arm of government had been consistently underfunded by the Federal Government.
She maintained that this would bring a setback to the ongoing transformation of the sector.
Mukhtar noted that a situation, where budgetary allocation to the judiciary continues to drop while the general government budget is on steady increase every year is clearly an impediment to the quick and effective dispensation of justice in the country.
According to the CJN, “On the whole, it is hoped that as we commence a new legal year, the government will live up to its expectations and rescue the judiciary from plunging further.”
The CJN also warned that all arms of government must abide by the spirit and principle of separation of powers,saying only the National Judicial Council (NJC) is constitutionally empowered to deal with issues of administration and policies for the nation’s judiciary.
“Over the years, funding of the courts has remained a challenge as evidenced in the condition of many courts in Nigeria today.
“Statistics have shown that, funding from the Federal Government has witnessed a steady decline since 2010, from N95billion in that year to N85 billion in 2011, then N75billion in 2012 and dropped again in the 2013 budget to N67 billion.
“Indeed with this amount, if the amount allocated to the extra-judicial organisations within the judiciary is deducted, the courts are left with a paltry sum to operate.
“The simple implication is that our courts are increasingly finding it difficult to effectively perform their day to day constitutional roles.
“The resultant effect of a slim budget in the judiciary is that a number of courts in Nigeria today evince decay and neglect of infrastructural amenities particularly at the State level.
“In some cases the court buildings do not possess the required well equipped library for judges to conduct their research.
“This may make judges rely on information supplied by lawyers which should not be the case,” she stated.
Her lamentation came as the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Okey Wali, SAN, said the bar’s great expectations of the bench under the leadership of the CJN had largely been met.
Wali said the CJN has really worked hard to restore confidence in the judiciary through disciplinary mechanism of the NJC.
He lamented that the nation’s leaders were more concerned with the next general election at the detriment of their responsibilities to the people.
According to Wali, “The NBA is chagrined by the buccaneering, crass materialism and rampant oppotunism that have bedevilled Nigerian politics and governance.
“These have reached a crescendo in the past few months . Our political landscape has increasingly been marked by violent rivalry, cheap and ugly theatrics, Infantile displays of power and sheer impunity.
“The NBA condemns this trend in the strongest terms and calls on all concerned to stem the tide well ahead of the 2015 general elections, when Nigerians will vote our the anarchists in our midst.”
In his contribution at the event, The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, commended the efforts of the CJN at reforming the judiciary.
He however lamented the declining standard of legal education, ethical standards and discipline at the Bar, saying the nation’s universities must rise up to the challenge.
Responding to the encomiums showered on her, Mukhtar recalled when she was appointed as CJN, saying,”A year ago, I sat before you like this to deliver my first speech, as the head of the Nigerian judiciary, I promised to do the best I can, to restore the fading glory of this country’s judiciary.
” We are not there yet but I give God the glory for how far he has taken us and it is my hope that when I will seat before you next year again to deliver a speech like this, we will be totally proud of our bastion of justice, our collective hope, our judiciary.
“To ensure the above, certain indices have to be guaranteed, for instance Government must at all times ensure total compliance with the rule of law as well as adherence to the principle of separation of powers.
“Indeed we must be guided with the reality that under democratic dispensation, the three arms of government must keep faith with the doctrine of separation of powers as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, the judiciary must continue to defend its independence so that it should not merely be apparent but must be seen to be real.
” By virtue of Section 153 of the Constitution, the National Judicial Council is the apex body for the nation’s Judiciary. By paragraph 21(1), part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, the council has the power to deal with matters relating to broad issues of policy and administration of the Judiciary.”
On the performance of the Supreme Court in the immediate past legal year, she said “during the 2012/2013 legal year, a total of 511 cases made up of 416 civil appeals, including political matters and 95 criminal appeals were filed in this Court.”
According to the CJN, “Of this number, 280 of the cases were heard which consisted of 224 civil and political appeals and 56 criminal appeals.
“Also in the same legal year, judgment was delivered in 137 civil appeals and 42 criminal appeals bringing the total number of judgments delivered to 179. This is undoubtedly a tremendous achievement and I must congratulate and commend my learned brother Justices of the Supreme Court for their exemplary dedication, hard work and commitment to duty, which are indeed admirable by any standard.
“As part of my contribution to the speedy dispensation of justice, I have also in the legal year just concluded, issued the practice direction for the Supreme Court, the focal point of which is the expeditious administration of criminal appeals as well as the speedy determination of interlocutory appeals. To match words with action is the fact that recently, seven justices were called from vacation to preside over the Ondo State gubernatorial matter for which the judgement would have been statute barred, had the court waited till the end of the vacation.”
Also speaking on the delay in the justice system, Mukhtar said “There is need for a comprehensive restatement of our criminal laws to take into account what is relevant for retention and update regularly.
“The problem is exacerbated by the unwholesome practice of some of our security agents involved in the criminal justice administration system. It is common knowledge that our security agencies usually rush to the courts with suspects, before looking for evidence to prosecute them. The persistent use of the ‘’Holden charge’’ by these agencies to detain awaiting trial suspects, is a major contributor to the high number of cases pending in our courts.
“This procedure is a far cry from what obtains in other democracies, where discrete surveillance is placed on crime suspects who are painstakingly stalked by security agents, until such a time when enough evidence would have been obtained for their arrest, arraignment and prosecution. But in Nigeria, suspects are promptly arrested and often times arraigned in court, even when no evidence for prosecution has been gathered.
“The backlash from such failure of proper investigation by our security agencies is the resultant hike in the number of cases pending in the courts. An extreme consequence of these glaring lapses may lie in the loss of confidence in our domestic justice administration system which rubbishes our often brandished favourable investment climate and translate to a huge disincentive to potential foreign investors in Nigeria.
“Further, by our criminal procedure, I believe we have a variety of unnecessary dichotomies – felony and misdemeanour, indictable and non – indictable offences etc. This has made commencement of criminal proceedings complicated.
“Jurisdiction is very paramount in a case and often time a lot of time is expended on Jurisdiction on account of this dichotomy before the proper commencement of the case.
“In civil procedure, the situation is scandalous to our notion of justice. To exhaust complete remedy in a case, i.e. from trial court to Supreme Court, could take up to twenty years with the original litigants dead and substituted and in some cases the substitutes also dead and substituted. The process of interlocutory appeals aggravates the situation to the extent that by the time the Supreme Court decides that they be continued in trial court, most of the witnesses might have died or are alive but senile, with documents no longer traceable.”
