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Six top flight legal experts, including two retired Chief Judges and four Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) have described as fantastic but unrealistic and impracticable the idea broached by President Muhammadu Buhari to set a maximum 15-month time limit in the statute for hearing and conclusion of all manners of cases in the country.

They are former Chief Judge of Lagos state, Samuel Omotunde Ilori, former Attorney-General of Osun state, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), former Attorney General of Delta state, Charles Ajuyah (SAN), former Minority Chief Whip of Imo state and one-time lawyer of Buhari, Chief Mike Ahamba (SAN), a renowned constitutional lawyer and arbitration expert, Dr Alex Izinyon (SAN) and a one-time Chief Judge of a North-central state who did not want his name in print.

The legal experts who spoke in separate interviews with Blueprint   said it’s the wish of  everyone to have it as pronounced by President Buhari, but that with the present judicial  architecture, the idea is unrealistic and a mere wishful thinking.

In fact, one of them said even in the US where things work, it takes an average of three years for a case to run its full course from trial court to the Supreme Court.

But they all agreed that a lot of things could be done to fast track the justice delivery system and achieve a much better result compared to what presently obtains in the nation’s judicial system.

They also gave reasons it is presently an impracticable assignment but that it could be possible with time.

Buhari’s position

Blueprint reports that Buhari had last Wednesday advocated a maximum of 15-month time limit to hear and determine civil cases and 12 months for criminal cases from the trial court to the Supreme Court in the country.

He spoke at the just concluded 60^th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

 “Why can’t we have a rule that will say a criminal trial all the way to the Supreme Court must not exceed 12 months? And why can’t we do the same for civil cases? Even if we say that civil cases must not go beyond between 12 and 15 months. I think that for me is stepping forward” from the trial court to the Supreme Court,” President Buhari had said

Ex-Lagos CJ

Speaking on the proposal, a former Lagos CJ,   Justice Ilori said: “For now, it is not possible. If you get to Lagos High Court alone, for instance to see the amount of cases there, judges are killing themselves to go through them.

“As a judge, if you get there in the morning to do call over alone, I mean, just call the case one after the other and say adjourn, it will be noon before such judge can finish with what he has on the cause list. It is a big problem. And it is because at the slightest provocation, people come to court.

“I remember when we started pre-trial conference in Lagos, a lot of cases were sorted out. Once they get there, a lot of cases were settled.

“At the time we were doing that, the judge that handled the pre-trial conference would not be the one that would handle the real trial if it eventually went for trial. It is only when we couldn’t settle that it would go to court for real court. There is an avalanche of cases at the high court there.”

Ajuyah

Also speaking, Mr   Ajuyah said: “Well it is possible fixing those time limits. But looking at it, from judicial perspective, it is not achievable because there are many stakeholders involved.

“What do I mean? When you talk about the criminal justice system, it starts with arrest, then investigation, then DPP’s advice, then filing of the information, then trial. Now, when you talk about the court system, when the matter finds itself into the docket of the court, there are many things that may militate against the idea.

“For instance, for justice to be done, you must give opportunity for witnesses to come.  However, where they transfer the police officer who is the IPO in a case for  instance, and he travels or he is on special duties in Jalingo, and the matter is in Benin, that stalls the trial.

“Then, you will hear again that oh, the prosecution counsel is not present in court, the defence counsel is not present. This one is sick, that one is indisposed. Then, you come again, sometimes, it is public holiday. These are the problems you have. Cases are stalled.

“Sometimes too, the judge has gone on special duty sitting on election tribunal. The truth of it is that it takes everybody in the justice delivery system to be up and doing.

“Buhari needs not say that. If everybody is conscious of expediting the justice system, it could be. Don’t forget, there are some criminal matters that are not well intended. It might be a politically-motivated case to punish somebody. These are some of the things.”

Awomolo

And in the view of  Chief  Awomolo, another silk,  the president meant well and his idea very welcomed given the aphorism that says: ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’.

“ If it is true that once you delay justice, you deny it, then, we need to look at what constitutes delay in justice. Why and whether it is peculiar to Nigeria. Why is it that in arbitration, within few months or weeks, the disputes are resolved?  

“Let me say that by the nature of judicial adjudication, there is the obligation to ensure that all the attributes of fair hearing are adhered to: Hear the other side; the judge must be impartial; the people must be truthful; if it is a criminal case, the prosecution must have done his job very well. That is, he must have done proper investigation; there must be no cover up, there should be no hiding place.

“But in Nigeria, we have a big problem relating to the attitude of our people to criminal prosecution. Nigeria’s investigation of crime is never thorough. Every system in Nigeria now is compromised. It is corrupted. So, you can’t really find an investigation by the police that is thorough; that is not compromised. If you go to EFCC, it is not better because people who are in the EFCC are from the Nigeria Police. If you go to ICPC, it is almost the same thing. So, you have that problem of lack of faithfulness.

“Lack of sincerity and thoroughness. Again, you find that most Nigerians who are accused of one crime or another, they are never always sincere and truthful and honest. Obvious thing, they will deny it. You find that both the investigator and those being investigated are playing games.

“You say somebody signed your signature, he said no, I didn’t write it. The police will have to resort to scientific proof. Resorting to experts whether it was actually forged or not. The police are not sincere; they are not thorough. Ditto for the accused who is also not sincere. He is not truthful. You find that everything is muddled up. I’m talking about criminal investigation now.

“Now, when you get to court, you find a set of challenges: One, there is insufficient infrastructure, not enough judges; the court is completely and totally overwhelmed.

“If you go to FCT high court, the judges who do criminal matters do an average of 20 cases in a day. How can they be thorough? Even with 10 cases, how can they be thorough? You want to kill them?

“And they write by hand. Everything you say, they write by hand, after writing for three hours, won’t they be tired? There is decline in productivity after three hours.”

 “In the last 10 years, the funding of the judiciary has been on the downward trend. You have those problems of lack of infrastructure, congestion of court cases. You also have that problem of poor investigation and the training and retraining of lawyers.

“At least, police don’t prosecute any more in high courts. And we are saying police should no longer prosecute because they are not trained. Retraining of personnel has also fallen short. It is a mountain of problem,” he added.

On civil cases, the SAN said: “Let’s go to civil. You have commercial disputes, family related cases, property, civil cases. It is the same judges who are doing the criminal cases that will do all these.

“And when you ask, in a day, they have 25 or 30 cases to run over. There is a great deal of challenges in our system.

“As I said to you earlier, there are insufficient judges, they are not motivated properly. Take Abuja, Lagos, Port-Harcourt, where else can you find functional courts in Nigeria apart from Federal courts. “Some states can’t even pay their bills. And you are talking of accelerated hearing. Oh, I like it, I applaud it but it is impossible. It is clearly impracticable.

“Again, when these judges are doing their jobs, you will go and take them to go and sit as election tribunals. They scatter them all over Nigeria to sit as tribunal. All cases in their courts begin to suffer. Their cases are suffering while sitting on the tribunals. They are adjourned indefinitely.

“The solution to political cases is creation of constitutional courts. It is the only solution. Let them hear all political cases and election matters. When they are done, let appeals go to the Court of Appeal and let it end there. If you are not satisfied, wait till another time. The problem is enormous.

“The president may mean well but the vice president who read the speech was not convinced. If you look at his demeanour when he was reading it, he was smiling.

“He knows it is an impossibility, he is just speaking to it. This is what my boss asked me to tell you. I have read it to you. But as a lawyer, he smiled.

“For now, in this country, it is an impossibility. I like it, I applaud it. Because justice delayed is justice denied. But very sadly, it is impracticable in Nigeria for now,” he said.

Izinyon

For Izinyon (SAN), the president’s idea is fantastic.

He said: “If that is coming from Mr President, then, they should back it up with action, not mere words. This is because it does not lie in the powers of only the judiciary or the lawyers.”

“It is doable and it is good for everybody. This is because everybody will be happy, particularly the plaintiffs. It will also be a good thing for investors when matters are disposed off timeously. But you must consider the enormous responsibilities that go with it.

“First of all, there are so many dimensions to it. If you start from the magistracy, the implication is that you are going to have more magistrates. You are going to have more high court judges, more area court judges, more court of appeal  justice, More Supreme Court justices. This is Category A. Then, you must have more buildings. To come with that, because you have more offices, there will be more personnel. All the ancillaries that go with them must be available like cars, more security for them. Are we ready for these?

“Because without that, we can’t achieve it. It will shoot up the budget. If you take a look at the cause list, let us start with the Supreme Court, we still have vacancies that have not been filled- four justices from the Court of Appeal last year, four this year. They have not been screened. They are not fully there now. Yet, we have a lot of load at that Supreme Court. If you are going to do that, you will need to expand the number of justices that will constitute the S’Court bench. You will need like 40 justices. So, if we have that type of number of justices, we can now ask them to do their work with the enormous resources invested on them.”

Ahamba

Speaking in a similar vein,   a former counsel to Buhari, Chief Ahamba,  said: “What he(Buhari) said is the wish of everybody that cases are heard and decided timeously.”

“But for some people, they don’t care. This is the problem in Nigeria. Before you can exchange papers in a case, the 15 months he is talking about have passed.

“When you look at what is remaining, you will discover that it is very difficult. Nevertheless, some cases can be finished in one month or two months, particularly if it does not involve the filing of statements of claim, defence and reply and things like that. But looking at the situation in Nigeria, it is not practicable.”

 “There are so many things that should not be argued or canvassed. There are many things all of us know as truth which we should allow the judges to decide. But it is a difficult thing to do. In pursuit of this, the constitution provides that election petitions should end within six months.

“After every election, the matters that have been commenced are abandoned without proper hearing. The Supreme Court said that it cannot be said that a person whose case comes to court properly under the law has to be terminated because of certain provisions of law. I think it is wrong.

“I understand his concern. I have the same concern. But in Nigeria, it is very difficult because most of us are no longer honourable and noble,” he said.

Another ex- CJ

Also contributing, a retired CJ in a North-central state who  spoke anonymously said: “For investors to come to Nigeria to do business, we need an effective justice delivery system. For law and order in society, we need an effective justice system. For the government to function very well, we need an effective justice system. 

“President Buhari’s idea is a good one. It will help him to achieve so much. It is also good for the country. 

“But how can this be achieved? It requires a lot from him. We will need to hire more judges at all levels. Infrastructure must be expanded. There must be reorientation among stakeholders. It requires a total rebirth. 

“Unfortunately, during his tenure, the budget of the judiciary has sunk. It is the lowest since the beginning of this Fourth Republic. 

“To pass an ordinary list of recommended judges from his table to the senate for consent takes him almost two years. The salaries of judges have not been reviewed for more than a decade. No incentive but the work is increasing. Who will do the work? The overwhelmed judges? “So many things are involved, which require a rebirth. And that rebirth starts with Mr. President,” he rang off.  

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