When Abuja judiciary innovates on criminal, civil adjudication

With the costly and ripple effect of delays in the adjudication of cases, the FCT judiciary has continued to device ways to make sure justice delivery system truly serves its purpose.

The introduction of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) which borrowed a leaf from Lagos State’s Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) is aimed at fast-tracking the justice dispensation process and as such when the Practice Direction and Sentencing Guidelines for ACJA was launched, it was hailed as true statement of purpose.

The Chief Judge of the FCT, Justice Ishaq Bello, went a step further last year to launch a “Bench Book”, said to be the first of its kind in West Africa, to guide judges on best practices for complex financial crime cases in addressing corruption in the country.

While speaking at the official presentation of the Bench Book on October 19, 2017, the Resident Legal Advisor of US Embassy in Nigeria, Scott J. Thorley, said the FCT High Court had become known as taking the lead in processing of complex criminal and financial cases.

“The goal of this project is to help a group of some Nigerian judicial experts draft an easy access bench book for their Nigerian colleagues in order to have readily available answers to a variety of issues of problems that often arise in complex financial cases,” he said.

The Chairman of the committee that drafted the book, Justice Salisu Garba, said the book consisted of 86 pages and was sub-divided into 15 parts covering areas such as conflict of interest and occasions requiring recusal of trial judge sand prosecutors.

Other areas covered by the book include role of court in plea bargain, admissibility of documents, problems with multiple defendants, forfeiture procedures and case management.

However, while a lot is being done towards clearing backlog of criminal cases, civil cases seem to be at the receiving end.

To address this issue, Justice Bello said a sieving committee was set up to look at all civil cases before the courts. This committee, according to him, was able to identify over 300 cases that could be handled through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism.

As such, alongside the DeClogging Panel for Criminal Cases, Justice Bello, on Thursday, inaugurated a 30-man Settlement Week Committee to be headed by Justice Olasumbo Goodluck. The idea for the settlement week, he said, was “one of the innovations in our new civil procedure rules. It is envisioned to designate a period when the court will bring litigants and mediators together to resolve their disputes by the instrumentality of ADR, thereby saving valuable time and money for the parties and for the court.

He said the cases that would be engaged in this pioneer edition of the settlement week were selected from the dockets of judges who had either been elevated or retired, adding that, “ADR has proven to be an effective tool for resolving cases and this initiative will hopefully assist us in our constant struggle to keep up with the increasing caseload.

“In the first instance, over 300 cases have already been identified and contact will soon be made with the parties. I also encourage counsels and parties who are interested in having their cases resolved during the week to feel free to approach the committee to have the case(s) listed for settlement,” he said.

Bello said of great concern to the FCT judiciary was the area of recovery of tenement fees and land matters, which he said led to the setting up of a meeting of stakeholders which included landlords and tenants.

“Recovery of premises may endure up to 10 years because of some lapses and deliberate designs to frustrate the smooth conduct of proceedings. Some landlords may even develop hypertension or paralysis or go to the great beyond as a result of this delay.

“We feel we need to bring this to an end so that end users of judicial services can get the benefits of the judicial process,” he said.

Speaking committee Goodluck on behalf of the members, Justice said while the initiative was a novelty, there was a lot to be done to raise the moral and public confidence in the justice system.

She said some of the over 300 identified cases dated as far back as 2006, but that the hope was for the settlement week to help look at alternatives to settling the cases aside litigation.

She said the cases would be published on the website of the FCT High Court and notices would be served on all parties, while the Panel of Neutrals that would assist the committee in the ADR Centre would soon be set up.

While begging lawyers to encourage their clients to attend the settlement week with the mind of resolving the cases, Justice Goodluck, however, appealed to members of the bar to have a spirit of collaboration for the initiative to yield the desired results.

“Resolution can only be achieved where there is a will by parties, counsels and organisers of the settlement week,” she added.

It was gathered that the week that would be set aside for this activity is expected to be a court-free week so that counsels and parties involved can participate fully. It was also gathered that the week would set the process of settlement in motion, thus, beyond the week; the ADR centre would remain open.

Lauding the initiative, the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Prof. Adedeji Adekunle (SAN), and the Executive Secretary, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, said they believed very soon other heads of courts in the country would key into the initiative just as they had been doing with the ACJA.

With the revolutionary impact of the ACJA, the statement of purpose in its Practice Direction and Sentencing Guidelines and the several de-clogging panels meant to fast track criminal justice system; the judiciary, court users and the general public are hopeful that the new initiative for the civil procedure would help to restore the eroding public confidence in the justice sector.