Calls For Judiciary Reform: Senior Lawyers And Activists Pressure Incoming CJN

Calls For Judiciary Reform: Senior Lawyers And Activists Pressure Incoming CJN

Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) among other justice sector stakeholders have urged the incoming Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, to prioritise the sanitisation of the nation’s judiciary.

The past deputy director of the Nigerian Law School, Prof Ernest Ojukwu (SAN), Prof. Samuel Erugo (SAN) and others noted that the Judiciary currently suffers from low public confidence, which they said, requires urgent attention to restore the integrity of the system.

They spoke in Abuja on Tuesday, August 20, during a roundtable discussion on how to address key issues undermining the Judiciary’s institutional integrity, effectiveness and service delivery.

The event was organised by the Tap Initiative for Citizens Development and the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI), Nigeria.

Speakers particularly, urged Justice Kekere-ekun to be prepared to reform the judicial appointment process to eradicate nepotism and favouritism, which they claimed was currently rampant.

They also touched on the need for the incoming CJN to address challenges relating to abuse of ex-parte orders, conflicting judgements by courts of coordinate jurisdiction and related problems.

Ojukwu, Erugo and others also stressed the need to reform the process of dealing with election petitions and political cases and work on ways to enhance discipline and accountability I’m the system.

Ojukwu advised the incoming CJN to always be guided by the principles of equity, fairness and justice.

He advocates a process that will reduce the influence of the judiciary in the resolution of election disputes so that political leaders are the true choices of the electorates and not the court.

Erugo suggested that the Supreme Court should be reformed so that it can review its judgements especially when there is great public outcry.

In his contribution, the Executive Director of Tap Initiative, Martin Obono noted that the National Judicial Council (NJC), which supervises the appointment of judicial officers, attracted public criticism recently over allegations that the outgoing CJN, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola influenced the appointment of family members.

Obono claimed that the NJC ignored its guidelines in recent appointments and added that “there have been reports of insider subversion of the applicable rules governing judicial appointments, such as the reported appointments in one instance of a candidate who scored zero in the NJC interview.”

He asked the incoming CJN, “to commit explicitly to a policy of restoring integrity and merit to judicial appointments”, stating that achieving this would entail the introduction of transparent processes of selection, advertisement of judicial vacancies, as well as in nomination of candidates, interview, shortlisting and selection.

Another contributor, Folarin Aluko said: “There should be a clear practice direction on management of territorial jurisdiction overlaps.

“It is suggested for this purpose that the structure and scope of such overlaps be agreed at the All Nigerian Conference of Judges and the Practice Directions should be uniform across all the court systems in the country”, he said.