President Muhammadu Buhari has
stated that the arrest and prosecution of judges was not meant to embarrass the
judiciary.
He said this on Monday while
declaring the 2017 Biennial All Nigeria Judges Conference open.
In his speech, Buhari said the
prime purpose of any government is to regulate social relations within its
territorial jurisdiction, noting that without the rule of law, the government
will degenerate into anarchy.
He said: “For the judiciary, the
public expects fairness, impartiality and speed in the administration of
justice. Regrettably court cases can drag on for years and years, sometimes
decades without resolution. I need only mention land cases in Lagos to
illustrate my point.
“Furthermore, there are huge
backlogs of cases waiting to be dispensed especially at the Appellate levels.
Reform of the judiciary should start at eliminating these seemingly endless
delays in settling what to the layman are apparently simple cases.
“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. This is an area Your Lordships should pay
close attention to in your efforts at reforming the system.
“Last month I wrote to all State
Governors urging them to make special visit to prisons in company with State
Chief Judges and release prisoners unnecessarily detained without due process.
“My lords, as all of us are aware
one of the objectives of this Administration is to combat graft and other forms
of corruption so endemic in our public life. The executive can not achieve
these objectives alone. We require the close cooperation of other arms of
government.
“My lords, earlier this year the
Judiciary came under investigation. 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
as wrongly portrayed in some sections of the media. 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. I am quite aware of the problems
besetting the Judiciary including under-funding, inadequate personnel and
absence of modern technological aids.
“Bearing these in mind, this
Administration increased allocation to the Judiciary from N70 billion to N100
billion in the 2017 Budget. A similar figure has been proposed for 2018.”
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