President
Muhammadu Buhari says the investigations involving some members of the
judiciary is not aimed at causing intimidation.
In October 2016, operatives of the
Department of State Services (DSS) raided the homes of some judges.
Some of those arrested are still being
tried in court till date.
Speaking in Abuja while declaring open
the 2017 All Nigerian Judges conference, Buhari said the action was in no way a
prelude to usurping the powers of the National Judicial Council (NJC).
He said he believes that the “majority
of judicial officers are learned and incorruptible and day in day out acting in
the best spirit of their oath of office’’.
“My lords, the judiciary came under
investigation earlier this year. Let me again assure the judicial community,
this action taken by the executive was in no way a prelude to usurping the
powers of the National Judicial Council or aimed at intimidating the
judiciary,” he said.
“Executive and legislative officials
were also investigated… I am aware that the majority of judicial officers are
learned and incorruptible and day-in-day-out acting in the best spirit of their
oath of office.”
Buhari said his administration’s
commitment is to accord the judiciary its constitutional rights.
He commended Walter Onnoghen, chief
justice of Nigeria, for his recent directive to all judges at lower courts to
provide him with a comprehensive list of all corruption and financial crimes in
order to designate special courts to handle them.
“I support your action and the public
is awaiting the results of this initiative,’’ he said.
He also spoke on the need for
fairness, impartiality and speed in the administration of justice by the
judiciary.
The president noted that there were
huge backlogs of cases waiting to be dispensed especially at the appellate
levels.
He said the reform of the judiciary
should start “at eliminating these seemingly endless delays in settling what to
the layman are apparently simple cases’.’
He lamented that court cases could
drag on for years and sometimes decades without resolution.
“I need only mention land cases in
Lagos to illustrate my point,” he said.
He added that, “again, litigants
expect that higher courts should endeavour to harmonize their rulings.
“There are contradictory decisions of
superior courts on the same subject matter in cases where facts are substantially
the same without a clear attempt in subsequent cases to distinguish the earlier
cases.
“This lack of clarity leads to serious
confusion to the lower courts.
“The knock-on efforts of these delays
and dis-continuities range from loss of confidence in the judicial system to
over-crowding of prisons.’’
President Buhari, therefore, urged the
leadership of the judiciary to pay close attention to these challenges in its
efforts at reforming the system.
He revealed that he had already
written to all state governors urging them to make special visit to prisons in
company with chief judges and release prisoners unnecessarily detained without
due process.
Source: The Cable
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