What do you think? Share your thoughts.
HON. JUSTICE NWALI SYLVESTER NGWUTA
The office of the Attorney General is too important to be combined with that of the minister of justice. Why? The chief lawyer of the federation must be independent of the whims and caprices of the government.
The rape case presently ongoing in Delta should not be heard. The state should not hesitate to pay the woman and apologise to her dearly. How would we imprison a woman with two male counterparts? This is unheard of.
GOV. ROTIMI AMAECHI
My Lords, we must defend democracy because we must defend
Nigeria
We must be prepared as a people to hold government
accountable; to demand accountability.
PROF. EPIPHANY AZINGE,
SAN, DG
There should be a quality process of appointment of judges. This
process should be open and transparent.
We are concerned by the declining intellectual death of some
of our judges and we are of the respective view that a wider diversity of
experience will add to the decisions of the judiciary in court. Such as
appointment of Senior Advocates of Nigeria to the Court of Appeal.
We need a revolutionary change, a precipitate and immediate change.
HON. JUSTICE NASIRU
AJANAH, CHIEF JUDGE KOGI STATE
The funding for the judiciary is of utmost importance. To encourage
judicial independence, monies accruing to the judiciary should be placed in the
care of the head of court. Though these provisions are in the constitution they
are not being implemented.
Where members of the Judicial Service Commission are
appointed by the Governor, it is the politicians that would decide the outcome
of that body.
A.B. MAHMOUD, SAN
The challenge we have presently is that we should not always
look to the solution of the problem of judicial reform from our constitution. There
are several issues and reviews that can be made without resort to constitution
review.
There must be a defined federalism for there to be changes
in the judiciary.
We should build a federalism that takes into consideration
our peculiarity.
There has been an excessive concentration of power in the
national judiciary such as concentration of matters in the Federal High Court. We
need to allow the State Courts, state judiciary to develop.
In fact, each States should handle their electoral disputes.
FESTUS OKOYE ESQ.
Asking for a
decentralisation of the judiciary should also mean the decentralisation of
other state issues such as the issue of having an independent state electoral
commission to conduct states and Local Governments’ elections.
We must therefore deal with our federation first.
The NBA should lay siege at the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY for this
process of constitutional review to be completed before the end of the year.
YUSUF ALLI, SAN
The truth is, most of us lack character. Character is at the
heart of the efficiency of the judiciary. If an individual lacks character,
appointing him a judge will not change that fact.
The problem of this day is that there are too many mistakes
of the heart from the bench.
MR. ASIJUE, (Representative for the Controller-General of the Nigeria Prisons Service)
The problem of congestions and the number of awaiting trial
inmates in prisons is not with the prisons service but the judiciary.
DELE ADESINA, SAN
The national industrial court is the court of first and last
instance except on fundamental rights cases. This should not be so.
The Nigerian Bar Association should sit with the National Judicial
Council to propose a guideline for the appointment of Judges.
FEMI FALANA, SAN
I do not believe that the ongoing review will stand the test
of time because we are not prepared to have a holistic once and for all amendment.
If we are going to have administration of justice in Nigeria
we must look at the role of lawyers in the importation of criminal proceedings
and civil proceedings. On the issue of staying of criminal proceedings, it is evident
that in the last 10 years, the States High Courts have not secured conviction
of criminals as is being done by the EFCC in the Federal High Court. Once a
criminal proceeding as commenced, there should be no stay of proceedings.
The judicial reform bill has failed to address the problem
of lack of access to justice by the generality of the people.
The rules of court should now be amended to abolish the
issue of locus standi. It should not be limited to fundamental rights actions
only.
We can do anything in Nigeria and go away with it. Ours is
the only country apart from Banana Island where the courts grant stay of
proceedings for an election petition matter, knowing that the action is time
bound.
On the issue of state police, we all know that there are
many police forces, the state security service have its own police service not
under the Inspector General of Police. We have the EFCC, NDLEA, Nigerian Civil
Defence, Vigilante groups, Neighbourhood watches, who carry guns in the name of
security, so why are we pretending? We need to streamline this primitive way of
policing the country. We only must ensure that we curtail the States Governors
from controlling the police.
We should get credible civil societies to be members of the
Police Council so that no Governor or president can say go and arrest Femi
Falana.
Our prisons are in a sorry state. These prisons were built
by the colonial masters. We don’t have prison congestion in Nigeria, we have
prison mismanagement.
It is only the rich and privileged that have some of their
rights respected in prisons. We call to the government that our prisons should
be modernised and conjugal visits should be allowed.
I also will suggest that the ICPC Act be reviewed to provide
the death penalty for looters of funds.
We should also increase the participation of women in
governance. Rwanda has the highest number of women in administration in the
world.
Chapter II of the constitution is justiciable, there are
laws of the nation that were made pursuant to the provisions under chapter ii,
they are justiciable, we should stop saying they are not.
MR. CHINONYE OBIAGWU,
ESQ.
We need a body outside the police that can police the
police.
I suggest that Chapter Ii and IV should be merged.
The National Assembly should be reserved for proportionate
representation, such as allowing 30% representation for women and people with
disabilities.
I.B.B BENEDE (miss)
Where robbers are convicted for armed robbery, they should
be sentenced and wasted.
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