The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has suggested some modifications to the operations of the courts across the country.
This, according to him is to enable the courts deal with the backlog of cases occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic on the Judiciary.
Among the strategies recommended by him for drastic reduction of the cases are the suspension of the 2020 court vacation, deployment of more IT facilities and adoption of alternative dispute resolution strategy.
The minister, who also hinted at the possibility of creating more courts and appointing more judges, said the Federal Government would willingly cooperate with states to arrive at a workable strategy to offload many of the court cases.
“Considering the current realities and in adjusting to the times, therefore, we will work with the Judiciary at the Federal and the state levels to arrive at a workable mechanism for achieving these within the shortest time possible,” he said in a statement yesterday by his Spokesman, Umar Gwandu.
Malami also suggested the need for judges to explore non-custodial sentence, among others as ways of speeding up the judicial process and reducing congestion in the correctional centres.
The minister explained that where the deployment of IT is not immediately possible, arrangement could be made to prevent crowd in the courts during proceedings as a way of maintaining social distancing.
Part of the statement reads: “Information technology is the tool we are majorly going to use to cover the lost ground in our judicial system and measures are already on going to address this in our judicial system.
”These adjustments will cover the courts’ administrative processes (such as filing of court processes), regulation of access to court and even sitting arrangements during proceedings (to sustain the gains we must have recorded in trumping COVID-19), tracking and retrieval of information from the courts, scheduling of court proceedings with strict time-allocation.
”Robust use of technological tools to conduct proceedings including virtual proceedings, (this would also enable the Justices/Judges to preside over matters in their chamber without being physically present in a formal court room, parties and their counsel will only connect through teleconference means, etc.
”Some of these adjustments are not simple and may require certain amendments of the Law (or issuance of Rules of Court and Practice Directions} as may be necessary.
“The judges will be sitting and maintaining social distance while the lawyers’ can interface with the courts through their digital computers. These should be considered in certain cases.
“We expect the judiciary to keep supporting the Presidential Task Force on COVID -19 and consider how best to start opening up as soon as possible and to start tackling backlog of cases. “We will start by seeing how much cases can be handled online or without a face-to-face interaction leveraging on the use of technology.
”At courts where hearing electronically may not possible, we can also consider having only few people attend to court matters. Ensuring that court dockets have only few cases per day can reduce the number of persons in courts.
”So, all the pending judgments should be drafted and concluded during short period of time. This does not require lawyers to be present. Once the judgment is ready, the lawyers should be able to receive them in their email or it should be posted on the court’s website for any interested party to download it. This is the way to go and thus provide greater transparency.
”The way to go in effect, court proceedings should also be handled in a manner that reduces the number of persons in the courts at any given time. Although this requires the movement of suspects from prisons to the courts, all such suspects should be tested, in fact everyone entering the court premises should be tested to ensure that they are not already positive, thus risking the lives of other people.
”While some of these changes may not happen in the short term, there is need to start the introduction of these new initiatives immediately through consultations with the Judiciary, NBA, and other relevant stakeholders.
”As such the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, with support of relevant stakeholders, will see to:
*Empowering the institutions of the ACJA, 2015 to commence functioning immediately. For instance, Part 46 dealing with the administration of the Criminal Justice Monitoring Committee; Section 251- witness payment; sections 107 & 108 etc.
“The net result will galvanise the judicial sector into rapid mode to fast track trials and release of those who are deserving.
*Deployment of ICT facilities to fast-track taking evidence from witnesses. Digital platforms such as Skype and Zoom can be used. NTA(Nigeria Television Authority) stations across the country can be connected to courts to facilitate taking evidence as witnesses do not have to necessary be physically present in court.
“It is expected that NTA facilities are to provide the rudimentary structures for video conferencing in view of their digital switchover process. Using their existing IT infrastructure, the courts may only need video screens and bandwidth at the minimum to ensure connectivity between parties to the proceedings.
*Speedy processing of pending civil matters that have not reached advanced stages of hearing and with the consent of parties and their solicitors can opt for out of court settlement. This may even mean using multi-door mediation avenues in courts that already have one, such in the case of Lagos and the FCT and a few other states.
*Criminal charges of minor and non-indictable offences should be summarily tried and sentenced to non-custody penalties. Even in cases where sentenced persons cannot pay their fines, the court should consider other alternative punishments other than jail term. This can include parole or probationary sentences and, if possible, community service like cleaning public places etc.
*Persons awaiting trial on minor criminal charges should be discharged, especially in cases where adjournments have been at the instance of the prosecution.