Before the Supreme Court of Nigeria becomes a commune of Bantustans, By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

In 1954 Sir John Verity misplaced his job as a result of he received an argument. It was in his ninth 12 months in workplace as Chief Justice of colonial Nigeria. Sir John arrived in Nigeria in October 1945 from the British Guyana, the place he had served in an identical place since 1941. On the time, Nigeria was nonetheless a unitary system below colonial rule.

Two years earlier than Sir John’s arrival in Nigeria, the Native Courts (Colony) Ordinance of 1943 had created a “Supreme Courtroom of Justice” for the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Taslim Elias, the distinguished tutorial who was destined to play a major position within the administration of regulation and courts in post-colonial Africa, described the construction of the colonial court docket system that Sir John met on arrival in Nigeria as comprising “a Supreme Courtroom, which is the very best court docket for the territory. It consists of two elements, a Divisional Courtroom and a Full Courtroom (as within the West African colonies), or a Excessive Courtroom and a Courtroom of Attraction (as in a number of different colonies resembling Jamaica, Singapore and Kenya), or just a Excessive Courtroom (as in Uganda and Northern Rhodesia).”

That system had existed with modest adaptation for the reason that Amalgamation in 1914. In his Amalgamation Report in 1919, Frederick Lugard, Nigeria’s founding Governor-Common, identified that it was made up of a Chief Justice and Puisne Judges who “sat at sure locations and visited on Assize the ‘District Courts.’”

Six years into Sir John’s tenure as Chief Justice, in 1951, the colonial authorities turned the nation right into a federation. Two years later, one of many points to interact the constitutional convention that started in London was the implication of this new construction for judicial administration. Because the convention started, the delegates – largely politicians who most well-liked within the language of the day to be referred to as “nationalists” – advocated the decentralisation of the judiciary. Sir John opposed the proposal, venturing with what proved to be correct foresight, that such a step “would possibly result in judges and magistrates turning into instruments within the fingers of politicians” and “would possibly ultimately result in the management of the judiciary by the Govt.”

The convention relocated to Lagos in 1954 the place the politicians overwhelmingly authorized the proposal to regionalise the judiciary. Having misplaced the battle over the way forward for the judiciary that he led, Sir John opted to take early retirement from the workplace of Chief Justice. He was the penultimate English man within the position.

Within the reorganisation of the court docket system that adopted upon the conclusion of the constitutional convention, the Federal Supreme Courtroom (FSC) was created in 1954. The areas had excessive courts from which appeals might go to the FSC. The best court docket for the nation remained the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.

By 1963, the nationalists preventing for independence one decade earlier had metamorphosed into political incumbents in search of management of the courts (like their colonial predecessors). The Privy Council had successfully dominated in favour of the opposition Motion Group (AG) on the query whether or not the regional governor might take away renegade premier, Ladoke Akintola, with no formal vote within the regional parliament.

Confronted with the lack of a prized ally helpfully decimating the ranks of a loathed political foe (like a sure minister is doing as we speak for the ruling social gathering), the then ruling federal coalition led by the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), legislated the Privy Council out of existence, abolished the Judicial Service Fee, and made the Supreme Courtroom Nigeria’s apex court docket. Sir John’s prophecy had turn out to be actuality.

Though the 1963 Structure enabled the court docket to take a seat “in such different locations in Nigeria because the Chief Justice of Nigeria might appoint”, the Supreme Courtroom has functioned from its seat, first in Lagos when it was the capital metropolis for the primary three a long time after independence and, thereafter, from Abuja, the present federal capital. The fortunes of the court docket have waxed and waned in symmetry with the political economic system of Nigeria. In contrast to different courts within the nation, there aren’t any divisions of the Supreme Courtroom.

For a lot of its life, the Supreme Courtroom was an all-comers affair for appeals “on questions of regulation.” Because the claims on the court docket’s judicial bandwidth rose and the political economic system of the nation grew extra advanced, it was predictable that its docket would enhance. The smart factor to do was to reform the regulation governing entry to the Supreme Courtroom – in addition to its doctrine – to maintain tempo with the growing demand for the rarefied consideration of the court docket and protect its authority. This was not finished.

As an alternative, for the reason that onset of the present elective dispensation in 1999, the Supreme Courtroom turned preoccupied with electoral and political disputes. Among the many many penalties from this, two are notable. First, the preoccupation of the court docket (and of the judiciary beneath it) with political and electoral disputes more and more duties its credibility. Second, the ensuing prioritization accorded by the court docket to political instances has created an insupportable backlog to which there is no such thing as a smart answer below the present system of judicial administration. The result’s that appeals not involving senior politicians or election outcomes vegetate interminably within the bowels of the Supreme Courtroom with no affordable likelihood of getting heard.

It’s proper that this example ought to interact the eye of senior attorneys and senior politicians. Manu Soro, the member of the Home of Representatives representing Darazo/Ganjuwa Federal Constituency of Bauchi State, has determined to bell the proverbial cat. On World Anti-Corruption Day, 9 December 2024, his invoice for Supreme Courtroom reform was gazetted.

The invoice proposes – amongst different issues – to authorise the institution of 5 regional divisions of the Supreme Courtroom, with the one in Abuja serving because the headquarters. The invoice comes full with a political geography of the proposed divisions: Umuahia (Abia State) to serve the south-east; Bauchi (Bauchi State) for the north-east; Uyo (Akwa Ibom) for the south-south; Lagos (Lagos State) for the south-west; and Kano (Kano State) for the north-west. The declared goal of the invoice is “to boost entry to the very best justice, to minimise the logistical value of accessing justice and to make sure well timed dispensation of issues introduced earlier than the apex court docket.”

Commendable as it’s for initiative, this invoice is plainly misguided for a lot of causes. First, it misconceives and mis-characterises the mission of the Supreme Courtroom. Second,  it has no analysis for the issues that ail the Supreme Courtroom and, to the extent that it evinces any, provides no affordable answer to them. Third, it provides a misplaced geographical and genealogical answer for a disaster of jurisdictional sclerosis and unimaginative judicial administration that it’s unable to see.

Essentially the most charitable anybody may be about this invoice is that it’s hare-brained. The answer that it provides is assured to make the scenario worse, not higher. It’ll additionally dis-establish the court docket as a result of a “Supreme Courtroom” that sits in judicial divisions will probably be neither apex nor supreme.

The disaster of appellate throughput and its penalties which presently afflicts Nigeria’s Supreme Courtroom is just too severe to be banished to post-codes outlined by geographies of family tree. To handle it, the availability of appeals to the court docket will must be constrained considerably. The administration of the court docket must be overhauled and professionalized; and case administration wants consideration too. The one factor the court docket can not afford is exactly what this invoice seeks – to cannibalise it into a group of judicial Bantustans.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a lawyer, teaches on the Fletcher Faculty of Legislation and Diplomacy and may be reached by means of chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu.