Gender-based Violence: Former AGF Calls for Specialisation in Adjudication

A former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Adetokunbo Kayode, yesterday said specialisation of judges in various areas of adjudication would enhance the speed as well as efficiency of the nation's justice system.

He stated this at the `First Moot Court Trial,’ organised by the Federal Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the European Union (EU) through the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (ROLAC) Program in Abuja.

Kayode while stating that he was not an advocate of special court, said he would rather support specialisation in the different section of legal adjudication and for judges too to have specialities.

According to him, for a seamless judicial system, there was need for judges with speciality in areas they are call to judge.

"I don’t believe we should have a special court, because I am one those who believe all our courts should be specialised.

“Someone who is doing criminal cases, should be specialised in criminal cases, the same thing with commercial cases, same thing with offences involving persons.

“We should have specialised judges, even lawyers too should be specialised.

"The rule of evidence must change, even in commercial areas. And that is why we spent the whole time in court, going back and forth," he said.

Also speaking, the current AGF, Mr. Abubakar Malami, said the federal government would continue to train investigators and prosecutors to enhance their capacity in handling Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) related cases.

Some of the areas for the capacity building, according to him, included evidence collection and storage, intelligence gathering and reporting, evidence analysis and chain of custody preservation.

“The above highlighted are critical to a successful prosecution and conviction of (SGBV) offenders’’.