In 1954 Sir John Verity misplaced his job as a result of he gained an argument. It was in his ninth 12 months in workplace as Chief Justice of colonial Nigeria. Sir John arrived Nigeria in October 1945 from the British Guyana, the place he had served in the same 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 Court docket of Justice” for the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Taslim Elias, the distinguished educational who was destined to play a big function within the administration of legislation 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 Court docket, which is the best court docket for the territory.
It consists of two elements, a Divisional Court docket and a Full Court docket (as within the West African colonies), or a Excessive Court docket and a Court docket of Enchantment (as in a number of different colonies comparable to Jamaica, Singapore and Kenya), or just a Excessive Court docket (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-Basic, 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 have interaction 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 popular within the language of the day to be known 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 Government.”
The convention relocated to Lagos in 1954 the place the politicians overwhelmingly permitted 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 function.
Within the reorganisation of the court docket system that adopted upon the conclusion of the constitutional convention, the Federal Supreme Court docket (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 combating for independence one decade earlier had metamorphosed into political incumbents looking for 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 right now 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 Court docket Nigeria’s apex court docket. Sir John’s prophecy had change into a actuality.
Though the 1963 Structure enabled the court docket to sit down “in such different locations in Nigeria because the Chief Justice of Nigeria might appoint”,the Supreme Court docket 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 financial system of Nigeria. Not like different courts within the nation, there aren’t any divisions of the Supreme Court docket.
For a lot of its life, the Supreme Court docket was an all-comers affair for appeals “on questions of legislation.” Because the claims on the court docket’s judicial bandwidth rose and the political financial system of the nation grew extra complicated, it was predictable that its docket would enhance. The wise factor to do was to reform the legislation governing entry to the Supreme Court docket – 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 accomplished.
As a substitute, for the reason that onset of the present elective dispensation in 1999, the Supreme Courtbecame 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 prioritisation accorded by the court docket to political circumstances has created an insupportable backlog to which there isn’t any wise resolution 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 Court docket with no cheap likelihood of getting heard.
It’s proper that this case 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, December 9, 2024, his invoice for Supreme Court docket reform was gazetted.
The invoice proposes – amongst different issues – to authorise the institution of 5 regional divisions of the Supreme Court docket, 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 best justice, to minimise the logistical price 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 Court docket. Second, it has no prognosis for the issues that ail the Supreme Court docket and, to the extent that it evinces any, presents no cheap resolution to them. Third, it presents a misplaced geographical and genealogical resolution for a disaster of jurisdictional sclerosis and unimaginative judicial administration that it’s unable to see.
Essentially the most charitable anybody could be about this invoice is that it’s hare-brained. The answer that it offersis assured to make the scenario worse, not higher. It would additionally dis-establish the court docket as a result of a“Supreme Court docket” that sits in judicial divisions shall be neither apex nor supreme.
The disaster of appellate throughput and its penalties which presently afflicts Nigeria’s Supreme Court docket is simply too severe to be banished to post-codes outlined by geographies of family tree. To deal with it, the availability of appeals to the court docket will have to be constrained considerably.
The administration of the court docket must be overhauled and professionalised; and case administration wants consideration too. The one factor the court docket can’t afford is exactly what this invoice seeks – to cannibalise it into a set of judicial Bantustans.
Odinkalu, a lawyer and trainer, could be reached at [email protected]Views expressed by contributors are strictly private and never of The Guardian.
