A major problem which has over the years militated against speedy dispensation of justice system is congestion in our courts. Congestion connotes an instance where cases are filed at a rate far in excess of what judges in the courts’ jurisdiction can dispose of within a reasonable time.

It makes nonsense of the objective of the rule of law and robs litigants of fundamental right to fair hearing within a reasonable time thus effectively delaying justice in the courts and constitutes a clog in the wheel of the administration of justice. No court is actually exempted from this malady.

However, the issue of case congestion at the Supreme Court is worrisome not only to stakeholders in the judiciary but also to litigants just as the nation’s Supreme Court like others in advanced jurisdiction of the world is the policy court for the nation, saddled with the sole responsibility to interpret the Constitution in the best interest of the country. It is the final arbiter in every jurisdiction.

Already, concerns about pending cases at the Supreme Court spanning 10, 15 or more years before they were decided have reached a climax, leaving many to constantly ruminate on the possible cause of delays in our courts.

For instance, a legal tussle over acquisition of land in Lagos in 1958 was last week settled by the Supreme Court 20 years after the legal battle began at a Lagos High Court.

The land along Ilasamaja/Oshodi Expressway, now Isolo Industrial Estate and Matori Estate was acquired by Lagos in the defunct western region in 1958, measuring 5000 acres for public purposes.

However, in 1979, 34 persons who were affected by the acquisition approached the Lagos State Lands Tribunal for the purpose of determining compensation payable to them for the acquisition of their land.

The tribunal, in its judgment, awarded the sum of N1, 141,631.20 as compensation for the 929.6 acres. Dissatisfied with the decision of the Tribunal and failure of Lagos State to immediately pay the compensation, the Akingbaiye Family and 23 other appellants on December 27, 1985, filed an originating summon at the Lagos High Court against the then Military Governor of Lagos State and the Attorney General of the State claiming payment of interest on the judgment sum.

The court entered judgment for the appellants but they were dissatisfied with the judgment on the issue of interest and consequently filed an appeal. In 2002, the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division dismissed the appeal, while the appellants then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The appellants represented by L.A.O Nylander filed their brief on May 31, 2016, while the state government’s brief was filed on June 28, 2016.

While arguing the case, Lagos State Attorney General and Com-missioner for Justice, Mr Adeniji Kazeem contended that the High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the matter in view of the provisions of Section 16 of the Public Lands Acquisition (Miscellaneous Provision) Act of 1976 which confers exclusive jurisdiction on the Lands Tribunal to decide issues in respect of compensation payable on lands acquired by the government.

Kazeem further argued that where a party was not satisfied with the decision of the tribunal, proper court to approach was the Court of Appeal and not the High Court as was done by the appellants in the instant appeal. After considering submissions by the parties to the suit, the Supreme Court held that the decisions of the High Court of Lagos and the Court of Appeal were null and void in view of the fact that the two courts lacked jurisdiction to entertain the matter as something placed on nothing was bound to fall.

The judgement has finally laid to rest the 38-year old case. Another case is the one involving the General Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly, Pastor Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, a.k.a Reverend King. It took a seven-man panel of Justices of the apex court more than 9 years to uphold the death sentence handed down by Justice Kayode Olubunmi Oyewole of an Ikeja High Court on January 11, 2007.

The Supreme Court in handing out its verdict on February 26, 2016, dismissed the pastor’s appeal describing the defence arguments as lacking in merit.

Ezeugo was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging for the alleged murder of his church member, Ann Uzoh.

He was arraigned on September 26, 2006 by the Lagos State Government on a 6-count charge of attempted murder and murder.

Lawyers speak Senior lawyers are also worried on the snail speed justice system in the country. One of them believed that the problem was a reflection of ‘crooked’ structure of governance currently in place in the country.

They also expressed their worries over infrastructural decay in the justice sector; a situation they said had contributed to case congestion at the various courts.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Niyi Akintola, while speaking on the issue, noted that the problem of congestion will persist until the country was restructured in line with the peculiarities of each region. He also suggested the setting up of appellate courts in each region of the country where cases from the lower courts will finally be settled.

He said: “In Nigeria, we love fire brigade approach in resolving issues that are very fundamental. The issue of congestion in courts cannot be removed from the structure of governance we have in place in the country. We are operating a very crooked structure.

“If Nigeria is a federation, why do we need anybody to sit down in Abuja and be appointing judges for the states in the name of the National Judicial Council (NJC). Ordinarily, each state should know his capacity and appoint judges in line with the work load and their capacity to pay.

“A situation where Lagos State that should have about 400 judges is having about 50 while states like Zamfara are having 16, does not augur well for our justice system.

When judges are appointed based on quarter system that is the resultant effects. “In most states in the Northwest and East, sharia courts hold sway above other civil courts.

In those states, sharia court should be given prominence over and above regular courts. But because we want to do everything in a uniform manner in Nigeria, such arrangements are jettisoned.

“We are not one but a country of diverse culture and background. It is a pity that we are not recognizing this and that is why a judge that is learned in Zaria law, once he gets to the Appeal Court, is posted to Lagos to be sitting over maritme and shipping matter, what does he know about that?

You posted a judge from Oyo State who is well learned in the area of customary law and land matters and to Sokoto as an Appellate Court Justice. Is that not an aberration? “Again, there are cases that should not go beyond the state level that are being taken to the Appellate Court.

All over the world, Supreme Court deals mainly in constitutional matters, but that is not obtainable in Nigeria.

Matrimonial causes find its way to the Supreme Court. The same thing with land, inheritance and chieftaincy matters.

“The problem will persist until we change the structure we are operating. Each states of the federation must be allowed to develop at its own pace. That is one of the principles of federalism. Even, the United States does not operate a uniform system.

In some states in the US, abortion is legalized while it is not so in other states. In order words, the peculiarities of each components part that make up the United States of America are recognized.

“The Court of Appeal was established by the western Nigeria, being the pacesetter and this was eventually embraced by the Federal Government. Its establishment was meant to clear congestion but when it was taken to the center, it now becomes an all comer affair.

“So, the fundamental thing is to restructure the country along federal line and all these problems will disappear.

“If we cannot have state Court of Appeal, let us have regional ones. Do you know that of all the 9 Justice of the Court of Appeal in Lagos, none of them is a Yorubaman? What type of anomaly is that? All these things are happening in an attempt to force us together, it cannot work.

Ours is unity in diversity and we must recognize our feelings. Our forefathers even recognized this fact. We must start to respect our differences and there will be a way out of all these problems.

“Why do you think we are having ethnic crisis? It is because the settlers are not having respect for the locals where they settled.

Can you imagine me as an Ibadan man and I found myself in Enugu, I now said I want to celebrate ‘Oro festival’, it cannot work because they will not allow me.

Even though, I have constitutional right of movement, it cannot work. These are the kind of things that brings about communal clashes and we are not addressing it. So, what I am saying in essence is that there is absolute need for us to restructure the country along the lines of our peculiarities.”

Another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr. Abiodun Layonu, listed factors responsible for congestion as infrastructural, systemic, institutional and activities of stakeholders in the justice sector.

He said: “A number of factors are responsible for the delay. There are infrastructural, systemic, institutional and the one relating to the activities of the stakeholders.

“One of the major reasons is the archaic system of not only filing of processes but also recording of court’s proceedings.

“Besides, the issue of judges’ writing in long hand is a major source of delay. Until we fixed these problems, we cannot get anywhere. “Then, some people will tell you there are so many cases but judges are not enough. That will always be so but judges will still have to manage their cases.

“On the congestion at the Supreme Court, I am not sure there is the full complement of judges at the moment. There are supposed to be a minimum and maximum number of judges at the Supreme Court. The full complement should be more than 17.

This may be a factor contributing to the congestion at the place. “Besides, I don’t think there is any reason why we cannot have more than two panels of Supreme Court Justices sitting at the same time. Even, if there are 17 Justices at the moment, we can still have two panels sitting at the same time. This will surely help in decongesting the court”.

Also speaking on how to stem the tide of case congestion at the Supreme Court, Abiodun Jelili Owonikoko (SAN) canvassed only cases that raises fundamental, Constitutional and legal issue should go to the Supreme Court.

“I think we need to reduce the number of cases that go to the apex court. The United States has just nine Justices of Supreme Court and the number of cases they handle in a year is not up to ten per cent of what our Justices are handling here.

“The cases that go to the Supreme Court in America raise fundamental, constitutional and legal issues that will impact so much on the entire society.

“However, it is not enough to reduce the number of cases coming to the Supreme Court, it is also important that we should firm up professional ethics that lawyers must be discouraged from filing frivolous cases.

“Lawyers must see the need to terminate cases that don’t have any chance of success at the lower court and should also embrace alternative ways of dispute resolution.

No one seems to be exploring the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) options offered by the High and Appeal courts.”

A Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Monday Ubani said the law should be amended to ensure that appeals from states will end at the state level of the Court of Appeal. He said: “The NBA recently set up a committee to do a general review of the legal profession and one of the issues to be tackled by the committee has to do with the congestion of cases in our various courts.

“I am suggesting that we should amend our laws so that appeals from states will end at the state level of the Court of Appeal. We must create Court of Appeal at the state level.

Also, if it is absolutely necessary, we can create Supreme Court at the state level that will have final jurisdiction on all cases.

“There is no point allowing every matter to go to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. This practice is actually killing both the legal profession and justice system in Nigeria with regards to expeditious and judicious trial to the extent that matters in court do not usually have an end.

“Most of the times, matters that have been settled by the Supreme Court are usually appealed against. Lawyers usually engage in this unwholesome practice because they want to become Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

This is because for a lawyer to be a SAN, he must show how many appearances he has at both the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court. That means even if you don’t have any genuine reasons, you must just appear at the appellate courts.

We must discourage this practice. “So, in essence, what I am saying is that an amendment should be done to our laws that will ensure that matters from the states end at the Court of Appeal at the state level.

“Supreme Court can also be created at the regional level. We can have one Supreme Court that will be handling all matters in each of the geo-political zones of the country.

By that time, the Supreme Court of Nigeria will only be concerned with Constitutional and matters of national interests.

“That is the only way we can help our legal system in Nigeria. We must also begin to look at the appellate jurisdictions and see how we can limit cases to certain level.”

Lawyer and Executive Director of the Socio-economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Adetokunbo Mumuni, noted that most times, ill-preparedness of both the defence and the prosecution’s lawyer is responsible for delay of cases.

“I want to say that whether a case that was filed in court will be decided promptly or not will depend on the seriousness of either the defence or the prosecution lawyer in handling their case. “There are procedures and once both the plaintiff and the defence lawyer are up and doing, cases will not be delayed.

For instance, a lawyer that filed a civil case knows that once the defendant is served, he has 42 days to file his response and it goes on like that.

So, there should be no reason for any delay if the rule is faithfully adhered to. There is no reason why a criminal matter should be in court almost till the coming of Jesus Christ, if the prosecution that initiated the case is up and doing.”

By: AKEEM NAFIU
The Newtelgraph News