VICE PRESIDENT Yemi Osinbajo has called for a stiff penalty to discourage unnecessary adjournment of court cases in Nigeria.
“Severe costs should attend adjustments,” he said while speaking at the 20th memorial anniversary symposium in honour of a legal luminary, Bankole Olumide Aluko, SAN, on Friday.
This, he said, would hasten the administration of criminal justice in the country.
According to a statement by the Vice President’s Spokesperson Laolu Akande, the Vice President, Osinbajo, noted that the court is a taxpayer-funded public resource, and the wasting or abuse of its finite time and resources without severe consequence will eventually discredit the country’s justice system.
“There is no greater waste of taxpayer’s funds than for a scheduled case to have to be adjourned. It is only heavy costs that will discourage this malfeasance.”
The cost should “involve imposing sanctions by a more intentional regime for the award of adverse and wasted costs” to address delays.
He suggested that adverse costs should be paid to the successful party in a civil case, while wasted costs should be directed against legal practitioners for poor professional standards in the conduct of a case.
Osinbajo said that “certainty or predictability of judicial outcomes is one of the major strengths of the common law.”
He added that the administration of the justice system was the foundation of law and order, commerce and democracy.
The delay in justice delivery is one of the issues of concern in the country’s legal system despite the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (2015), a legislative intervention to cure the teething problems of delayed criminal justice administration in the country.
The law makes provision for the day-to-day hearing of criminal cases.
While speaking on Channels Television Politics Today, earlier this month, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, blamed the delay, especially in cases involving politically exposed individuals on the judiciary.
He said the executive arm could not be held responsible for the speedy adjudication of justice in cases like that of former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal, whose trial at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory over alleged abuse of office had stalled.
Reacting, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Tanko Muhammad faulted the minister’s claim.
Muhammad, in a statement signed by his spokesperson Ahuraka Isah, said Malami’s allegations were like giving a dog a bad name to hang it.
He noted that more often than not, the Federal Government’s prosecution sector files more charges than it could prove or provide witnesses to prove, which most times allows the cases to fail.
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