ADMINISTRATION OF COURTS SYSTEM

INTRODUCTION

The machinery of Justice and the administration of justice cannot be adequately discussed until we discuss the administration of the courts in the dispensation of Justice. We must agree that creating the institution of the courts alone without the corresponding competent personnel to manage it will only result in failure. The quality of the judicial output is directly dependent on the competence, incorruptibility, efficient and dependable judicial administration. We must therefore look at the different personnel and participants in the judicial system in order to effectively come to the conclusion as to the impartially and efficiency of the judicial system.

Other Important Parts of the Machinery of Justice in Nigeria

In this section we intend to highlight in brief the roles of the legal profession, police and the judiciary in the Machinery of Justice in Nigeria.

 Legal Profession

Lawyers are important contributors to the smooth running of the machinery of justice in any civilized nation. Law is the primary machinery; those who profess and study the law are vital part of the machinery, without the lawyer, it is absolutely impossible for the wheel of justice to run if it could ever move at all.

The lawyer functions in various ways:

1. He advises people and the Government on the making of the laws, its interpretation and application. 
2.  By his training, he is most suitable to appreciate a judge to adjudicate in the interpretation of law, and settling disputes between citizens as well as between Governments. 
3. The lawyer represents litigants in courts and help them to present their cases in most logical manner and according to the law. 
4. The lawyer also helps in educating the public on their rights, duties and privileges under the law. 
5. The Bar also supplies the personnel for the Bench called the   and also many members of the Bar are now employed as legal advisers to organizations, companies and parastatals, companies and parastatals of Government. 

The lawyer therefore is the soul of the whole machinery of Justice without which, Justice will breakdown.
Before 1968, only persons who practiced as barristers or solicitors in England, Scotland or Ireland were admitted to practice in Nigeria under the 1968 Legal Practitioners Act.
The qualifications for Legal Practitioner in Nigeria as a prerequisite to practice in Nigeria are: -

THE CANDIDATE MUST

1. Be a citizen of Nigeria 
2. Satisfy the Chief Justice that he is of good character and 
3. Produce a qualifying certificate issued by the Council of Legal 

Education Certifying that;

1. He has attended an approved course of examination taken in conjunction with the approved course of study; and 
2. That he holds, approved qualification by virtue of study and c. That he has successfully completed a course of practical training for one year of the Nigerian Law School. 

The Council of Legal Education is the sole authority in Nigeria saddled with education of lawyers and maintains high standards in lawyers training in Nigeria.

 Judiciary

The Judiciary refers to the whole body of lawyers who preside at the courts. The term therefore includes: Judges of the superior courts, and those of inferior courts – Magistrates and Upper Area Courts.

Judges are appointed from the Bar, it is an honor and it is believed that appointment into the Bench is seen as an acknowledgement of having achieved distinction in the profession. Appointments into the higher bench like the High Court is mainly from Magistrates, Registrar of the High Court, State Councils and practicing legal practitioners. While that of the higher bench – the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court are mainly from the High Courts; and Court of Appeal as the case may be.
In Nigeria today, all appointment into the Superior Courts are done on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council; whose duties include general scrutiny, investigation and assessment of each nominee into the Bench.

Independence of the Judiciary

Independence of the judiciary is necessary to safeguard the whole system from being put ridicule and disgrace. The independence of the judiciary is best safeguarded by the manner of discipline, removal of Judges and emoluments of the judicial officers.

The Constitution made specific provisions for the retirement of Judges. In the case of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal Justices the retirement age has been increased from 65 to 70 years while others are fixed at 65 years.

On removal of Judges from office, the Constitution classified them in two categories (1) Chief Justice of Nigeria, President of Court of Appeal, Chief Judge of Federal High Court, Chief Judge of High Court of F.C.T., Grand Kadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal of F.C.T., President of Customary Court of Appeal of F.C.T. could only be removed by the President acting on address supported by two – thirds majority of the Senate while those of the States by the Governor acting on address supported by two – thirds of member of the House of Assembly. While others shall be on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council that he be so removed for inability to discharge the functions of his office or appointment (whether arising from infirmity of mind or of body) or for his conduct or contravention of the Code of Conduct. Why the disparity in the cadre of Judges who could be removed through the National or State Assembly and those that will not have such privilege? It will seem to make some Judges more secure than other, misconduct is not defined here, but contravention of Code of Conduct, should mean that the judicial officer have been found guilty by the Code of Conduct Tribunal; more allegation should not suffice.

However, no Judge could appeal before a court in Nigeria after retirement. The Constitution used the phrase “for any reason whatsoever”. Does this preclude a retired Judge from defending himself in a court? He cannot practice as a legal practitioner in/before any Court in Nigeria.

The retired judicial officer is also guaranteed the payment of pension, which is equivalent to his salary till he dies if he has served for 15 years, and attained the 65 years retirement age. This also ensure peace of mind and discourages fear of poverty during retirement that could force some Judges to be corrupt in trying to save extra for their retirement.

 The Police Force

The Nigerian Police is established by virtue of S 214 of the Constitution. It is responsible for the prevention of crime, and detection of crime, the apprehension of offenders, the preservation of law and order, the protection of lives and property and the enforcement of all laws and regulations made by the Federal and State Government and bye laws made by the Local Government authorities.


The Police also help in the enforcement of judicial order and judgments. Their role is very crucial in the administration of criminal justice – in the lower courts; they are the prosecutors in those courts and present criminal trials.
The police investigates allegations of crime, and submit the results of their investigations to the Ministry of Justice for advice and further action without the input of the police in criminal investigation criminal trials would have been non-existent.

Clogs in the Wheel of Progress

It is most disheartening and distressful that the machinery of Justice in Nigeria is still clogged by various reasons which in most cases have nothing to do with the law itself but with the administration of Justice itself. Kayode Eso JSC (as he then was) commented on the state of the Judiciary as follows: “I think it is most disgraceful that the administration of Justice in the country should be clogged in any manner.” We will in this section, examine some of the clogs in the wheel of the machinery of Justice in Nigeria. The clogs could be seen from three angels, (1) the lawyers (2) The courts (Judges and Court staff) (3) the litigants.

THE ROLE OF LAWYERS

The lawyers are active participants in the temple of justice, and it needs, discipline, honesty, integrity and good conduct from lawyers to make the wheel of Justice to move in Nigeria today. It is worrisome that a lot of lawyers have taken themselves to subvert the cause of justice and deliberately set out to destroy the very foundation of the profession in which they earn their living. It is unfortunate that most lawyers do not ever bother to examine the rules of professional conduct of their profession, and even when they realize the unprofessional conduct they engage themselves, they persist, as there is no serious machinery to discipline them.

Many lawyers engage in bribing the Judges to get what they want, present fake defendants in court, and refusal to serve the proper defendants. This practice led the Lagos State Judiciary to demand for passport photographs from the Defendants before they enter judgments in recovery of premises proceedings. Use of the court process to abuse the court, causing inordinate delays by the use of crass applications, filling of frivolous motions, writing letters for adjournments and lying as to their whereabouts; many are ready to disgrace their profession in order to “eat”, many prefer to stand at the court premises to engage in “charge and bail” most of these “charge and bail” lawyers will even go on to connive with the Magistrates and Police to refuse bail in order to increase their fees! Many lawyers choose their courts through the connivance of court. Registrars and even Judges!


These are attitudes and behavior that bring the profession to ridicule and make the ordinary man in the public loose confidence in the machinery of justice and tend to push people to the law of the jungle.

 THE COURTS (JUDGES AND REGISRARS)

The courts are not left out. The Court Registrars are serious impediments in the wheel of judicial progress. Many will never file court processes unless they are bribed; there have been cases where files have disappeared after bail was granted. Many of our judges are embarrassment for the court and litigants. Many of our Judges are highly intelligent and hardworking; a few had constituted themselves into problems to the judiciary. In the kayode Eso led panel set up to investigate the activities of Judges and Magistrates inaugurated on 29th December 1993 indicted forty-seven Judges for unethical behavior, persistent reputation for corruption, ineptitude resulting in low productivity, mal-administration and lack of leadership by example, those include, “the negative public perception of the judiciary, exemplified by complaints and allegations of polarization along tribal or political learning, corruption, and high profile lifestyles of some Judges, long period of time in the disposition of case, high cost of obtaining Justice, mode of appointment of Judges and their terms and conditions of service etc” we need not say more on this.

LITIGANTS

Many litigants also contribute to the clog in the wheel of progress. Some in fact approach judges to bribe them in order to obtain judgment. Many are in the habit of persuading their lawyers to help them in choosing their courts. Many, will refuse to pay their lawyers properly to enable the lawyers present their cases diligently in court preferring instead to bribe the judges and court officials. Many are in the habit of changing lawyers at will in order to delay matters in court.

Reflection for Reform

Having identified some of the problems in the machinery of justice in Nigeria, the last part of this paper is devoted to suggestions for reforming the system. Reformation is aimed at making the machinery of justice achieve its purpose. The law, as we have seen above is not entirely the problem, but the large number of people, both the operators (lawyers, justice, court registrars etc) and the public at large who are bent on perverting the whole system and creating a scenario of machinery of justice being used to perpetuate injustice.


The aim of reformation may not necessarily involve amending the law as such, except for those areas that has created loopholes for exploitation by agent of destruction in the society. The making of laws to block the loopholes or creating a whole machinery to check miscreants has been adopted in the past and is not only costly, but diversionary. The problem is that the same Nigerian will be called upon to effect the changes envisaged.

Reforms, must also be people and justice oriented, a system that may be put in place to check abuse of judicial process, which in itself will involve inordinate delays, bureaucracy and thereby encourage inefficiency is a problem created not solved. The cost of trying to block loopholes that allows for corruption of judicial officers is so enormous that it would have been better to leave the situation as it is, reform should be approached in three dimensions from the law point of view, the judicial officers i.e. judges and the staff of the judicial and the litigants.


The law I believe is adequate in many respects. The law as we have it today has evolved over years of use, and has been amended as occasion demands, using experience from other lands and local experience as well. However, the rules of court should be made less cumbersome, in filling of cases, and the rules regarding trials should be less stringent and should make less room for adjournments during trials.

There are cases that went on for more than 10 years while taking evidence. The use of interlocutory appeals to delay the course of justice should be discouraged or minimized. More use should be made of the Rules of court as regard summary judgments, so that issues that are not in disputes could easily be settled without going into extensive trials over non-issues.

The Judges remuneration should be increased to minimize corruption, and those found corrupt should be quickly removed to avoid the spread of the cankerworm. The Judges should also be monitored in terms of the number of cases they dispose off in a month or yearly.



The case of ex parte ruling to perpetuate injustice should also be discouraged; and injunctions should be granted on very rare occasions. Judges should respect decisions of their brother judges, even though they are of coordinate jurisdiction, but many Judges are found of giving contrary rulings all in order to embarrass the judiciary. The examples are during the political problems engendered when Gen. Babangida the former military president of Nigeria did not wish to leave office, some courts in Abuja gave




rulings stopping the publication of the results of the June 12, 1993 election while others in Lagos and Oyo State were busy giving ruling to continue the announcements. The president Babangida in his speech gave us reason for the annulment of the various rulings of court, and in order to save the judiciary the election was annulled. Any judicial officer found demanding for bribe before doing his legitimate duties, or those who will never wish to do their duties until encouraged with monetary gifts should be removed from the office immediately.

The litigants normally will not give when there is no demand, or when the files are moved appropriately, it is when there is a problem that generally people will want to use money or other inducements to advance their causes.

There should be public enlightenment that any one caught bribing a judicial officer will be punished by the law. Generally, there should be continuous training for judges and other judicial officers, and the appointments into the Higher Bench should be by merit.

CONCLUSION

In this unit we have been able to trace the historical basis of the legal system in Nigeria up to the present day.

The machinery of justice in Nigeria is intricate and complex, yet to the operators is very simple and straight forward, and from the constitutional point of view, caters for all aspects of our society and people, either sharia, Customary or English Law no one can complain that he has not been afforded the proper judicial process to entertain his claims. It is left for all the participants in the judicial process to make sure it works. The wheel of justice may be made faster, but surely it is moving it has not broken down progress may be slow, it could be made faster, but surely it is moving, it has not broken down.

SUMMARY

The role of lawyers in the quick dispensation of justice cannot be overemphasized and the quality of the lawyers reflects on the judicial system. The role of police is also mentioned briefly, while the independence of the judiciary guarantees its efficiency and acceptance, and will reflect on the nation at large.