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

A total of 1,124 corruption cases have been forward to the National Judicial Council (NJC) for speedy trial in the proposed special corruption courts across the country.

Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, made the disclosure yesterday in Abuja at the formal inauguration of the Corruption and Other Financial Crimes Cases Trials Monitoring Committee (COTRIMCO).

The committee which is headed by a former Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Suleiman Galadima (rtd), apart from monitoring the proceedings of high profile corruption cases at the various courts, is also expected to propose practice directions that would help uproot all encumbrances to the speedy trial of corruption cases in the courts.

Following the stance of President Muhammadu Buhari on corruption in the country, a lot of alleged looters of the country’s resources have been arrested and currently undergoing trials in various courts across the country.
However, two years down the line, little or nothing has been achieved in the prosecution of these cases in courts, prompting a larger number of the public to allude that the judiciary is corrupt.

“As I stated recently, the society we serve appears dissatisfied with our performance, and we must neither dismiss nor relegate these rising criticisms as mere sentiments or unfounded accusations devoid of substance.
“We must rise and protect the dignity and integrity of our judicial system,” he said.

The CJN stated that consequent upon this, the NJC decided to initiate far-reaching measures that would eradicate delays in the trials of corruption and other economic crime cases in the courts.

According to him, “We did announced that Heads of Courts were directed to compile and submit a compendium of all corruption cases being handled by their various divisions and I also directed them to designate a court or more in their jurisdictions, depending on the volume of such cases, solely for the trial of such cases.

“So far, we have received a total of 1,124 such cases reported to us from various jurisdictions across the country.”

He commended the chairman and other members of the committee for who, in spite of their numerous other engagements, accepted to serve their fatherland through this assignment.

The CJN said their membership of the committee is purely on merit and in recognition of their track records of service to their fatherland as well as their contributions to the development of the nation’s law and jurisprudence.

While stressing the importance of the assignment to the judiciary and the country at large, Onnoghen urged them to come up with strategies that will help eliminate delays and its attendant effects on the speedy disposal of corruption cases.

He, however, admonished both prosecution and defence counsel to “shun all unethical antics being deployed that may result in the delays usually experienced in the hearing and determination of corruption cases.”

While responding, Chairman of the committee, Justice Galadima, thanked the CJN and the NJC for the confidence reposed in them.

He assured them that given the necessary tools and encouragement, he and his colleagues would deliver on the said task.

The committee is made up of eminent stakeholders drawn from the Bench, Bar and civil society groups.

Source: This Day

It is a new legal year and at a ceremony commemorating its commencement, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), the Hon Justice Walter Samuel Onnoghen announced the establishment of new corruption courts to aid efforts of the federal government in tackling the menace.

Fighting corruption has been the buzzword for the present government at the centre led by President Muhammadu Buhari for the past 27 months. The administration, to be fair to it, has unearthed mind-boggling instances of corruption under the Goodluck Jonathan administration but is yet to establish significant victories against the many corruption suspects identified.

At different points in time, the government has blamed its uninspiring success rate in court either on the aggression of ‘corruption fighting back’ or on the complicity of judges and other members of the legal profession. The delays experienced in dispensing with corruption and other criminal matters have also been cause for worry among Nigerians and in one instance, President Buhari described the judiciary as his major headache in the anti-corruption war.

The Nigerian judiciary has displayed varying reactions to vitriolic comments by members of the executive arm of government, choosing many times to ignore the attacks while issuing strong statements to assert its innocence and fairness on some occasions. On Monday, 18th September, 2017, the judiciary gave its most assertive response yet by announcing the establishment of special corruption courts as a measure of support for ongoing efforts to tackle corruption.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen (JSC), while declaring open the new legal year stated that “We, in the judiciary are fully aware and in fact worried by concerns expressed by members of the public on the very slow speed with which corruption cases in particular are being heard or determined by our courts.”

Under the new arrangement announced by the CJN, all divisions of state and federal high courts in Nigeria are to have special departments to which corruption matters will be duly assigned to ensure that more corruption cases are heard and dispensed with in timely fashion. All appeals emanating from corruption cases are also to be treated with dispatch by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. In addition, the judiciary will be establishing an Anti-Corruption Cases Trial Monitoring Committee to ensure that all trial and appellate courts handle corruption cases with required diligence and transparency.

All the new measures considered highlight the importance of the judiciary to government’s anti-corruption campaign and appear to score a major point against the president and his men who have in any case been unable to establish similar measures through legislation. The executive bill for the establishment of special courts for corruption and other crimes has earned an indeterminate fate in the National Assembly for predictable reasons while the prosecution advisory committees supervised by the attorney-general of the federation have become known more for media wars with anti-graft agencies than for unique stratagems of clinching victory for the government in court.

The above said, while the new measures announced by the CJN hint at major reforms within the judiciary, we cannot pretend not to know that they may also simply represent face-saving measures. Our judges are far from blameless as far as corruption is concerned and like all other systems operated by humans, individual shortcomings may as well render nought the expected effects of new reforms. To mitigate the possibilities of misapplied use of discretion in facilitating speedy handling of corruption cases, the CJN needs to issue unified and extensive practice directions guiding the activities of the special corruption courts to be set up in various divisions.

In the last one year, we have seen raids carried out by the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the homes of certain judges and even though revelations by the agencies do not constitute conclusive proof of wrongdoing, they hint at distressing possibilities. It is not impossible that there are many more questionable persons still sitting as judges at various levels of court and who may make it into new panels set up to hear corruption cases. It will therefore be necessary for the National Judicial Council (NJC) to work with relevant agencies and stakeholders in minimising this risk by designing a thorough screening process for the selection of judges to hear corruption cases.

Going beyond the establishment of special courts and procedures to treat corruption cases, the CJN needs to work with the executive and legislative arms of government for extensive reforms of the judiciary to generally ensure the faster dispensation of justice in all matters. Nigeria needs more courtrooms and many more judicial officers with enhanced skills and aided by technology to ensure increased access to court verdicts in timely fashion as obtains in the fastest developing countries. The recent ruling of the Kenyan Supreme Court nullifying the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta was, for instance, available to the public within two hours of the verdict. The same can happen in Nigeria, we just need to push a little harder and that of course would also mean addressing the inefficiencies and brazen corrupt tendencies of support staff in many of our courts.

Source; www.olisa.tv