Buhari entrusts NBA on immediate judicial reform
POLITICS DIGEST- President Muhammadu Buhari has entrusted operators of the legal system to take steps towards changing the narrative with regards to the slow pace in the justice delivery system.
Buhari gave the charge on Wednesday at the opening session of the virtual 2020 Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) Annual General Conference with the theme step forward, which coincide with the body’s 60th anniversary.
Represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), the President also entrusted the legal practitioners to make amendments to the seeming preeminence of legal technicalities over clear-cut justice by common law.
Speaking on the theme of the conference, which he said translates into “taking responsibility,” Buhari explained that the situation had become necessary, given the current and pre-existing challenges confronting the system.
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According to him: “Why can’t we have time limits for all cases? Why can’t we put in place the rules that will say that a criminal trial all the way up to the Supreme Court must end in 12 months, and that a civil trial must not exceed 12-15 months? I think that, for me, will be stepping forward.”
The President, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Mr Laolu Akande, said: “step forward means taking responsibility. It may also means making progress, boldly taking on the challenges of the future.”
The President listed a few areas where “I believe we need to step forward and resolve some of the nagging problems of our systems of administration of justice.”
Going personal on the issue of delay in trials, the President referred to his experience at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunals in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2019.
He said until recently, court trials had been “terribly slow” and capable of frustrating genuine efforts aimed at promoting general progress of the society.
