President Muhammadu Buhari has directed governors and state
chief judges to release prisoners who are unnecessarily detained as part of
reforms in judiciary.
The president said in Abuja on Monday that he gave the
directive to the states last month and explained that over-crowding prisons and
some other noticeable problems in judiciary have caused loss of confidence in
the system.
Buhari spoke at the opening of the 2017 All Nigerian Judges’
Conference of Superior Courts, in Abuja.
The theme of the conference, “Strengthening Judicial
Integrity and the Rule of Law”, was apt at the time of consolidating and
sustaining democracy.
He said that the public expected 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.’’
He said that there were 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 endeavor
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.’’
He urged the judges to pay close attention to in efforts at
reforming the system.
A democratic system such as ours cannot survive or prosper
without strict adherence to the Rule of Law.
My Lords, Distinguished delegates, the prime purpose of any
government is to regulate social relations within its territorial jurisdiction.
Without the rule of law the government will degenerate into dictatorship or
anarchy.
He restated that the objectives of this administration was
to combat graft and other forms of corruption so endemic in our public life.
Buhari explained that the Judiciary came under investigation
early in the year was an action taken not to intimidate the judiciary or
portray.
“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.
“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.
“At the same time, 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.
The administration’s commitment, he said, was to accord the
judiciary its constitutional rights.
He commended the recent decision to ask all judges at lower
courts to provide 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.
NAN
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