Monday 23th June 2014..

Conference resumed sitting at 09:16am, presided over by the chairman.

Votes and proceedings of Thursday 19th June 2014 was read, amended and adopted.

The chairman of the committee on Law, Human right and legal reform Hon Justice G.A Oguntade (Rtd), presented the report of the committee to the conference.

Some of the recommendation made by the committee and additional recommendation made by delegates;

- Henceforth, both the Attorney General of the Federation and that of the States would serve a single term of six years as against the present practice where the tenure is not fixed. Such an appointment would be by the President and confirmed by the Senate in the case of the Attorney General of the Federation; while the State Governor would make the appointment subject to confirmation by the State House of Assembly in the case of states.

Such an appointee who must be someone of unquestionable integrity must have qualified as a legal practitioner in Nigeria and must have been so qualified for a period not less than 15 years, any appointee to the office of AGF shall be removed from office by the President acting on a two-third majority vote of the Senate for failure to discharge the functions of his office whether arising from infirmity of mind or body or any other cause or for misconduct.

- The Offices of the Attorney General of the Federation and the states be separated from that of the Minister and Commissioner for Justice.

- Concept of plea bargain be completely abolished. This will enable criminal and corruption cases to run their full course in contrast to the present situation where people accused of corruption are set free after parting with a fraction of their looted public funds.

- Every state of the federation should have a State Court of Appeal that would serve as a terminal court for states on state matters except in cases of weighty constitutional issues, civil, liberties and matters of overriding public interest with the leave of the Supreme Court. When established, the headship of the State Judiciary would immediately shift from the Chief Judge of the State to the President of the State Court of appeal.

- The Federal Government is expected to, through the Consolidated Revenue Fund, provide the take-off grant for the establishment of the State Court of Appeal while Section 121 of the 1999 Constitution should be amended to make non-release of funds to the Judiciary a gross misconduct.

- Establishment of special courts, for instance anti-corruption courts to handle cases involving corrupt practices. Such courts would be devoid of the niceties and technicalities of the conventional courts such as preliminary objections, injunctions, interlocutory matters, among others. Such courts when established would have full powers of the high courts and are to be manned by retired High Court Judges of proven integrity.

- Henceforth, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, shall, on the recommendation of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, be appointed to head the Federal Judicial Service Commission.

- On legal reforms, the committee recommended that the president should implement the policy recommendations directly and charge Government agencies to initiate the amendment of those acts relevant to their operations as recommended by the conference. 

- Conference recommendations should be taken to the court of public opinion/referendum if the need arises. 

- On Gender issues, specific recommendations were made on the need to abolish all discriminatory laws and practices against the female gender from our statute books and communities respectively. Recommendations were also made for the repeal of all subsidiary legislations that hold women down and subject them to all cultures, customs, traditions and practices that undermine their status as women, or that derogate from their welfare, dignity, interests and aspirations. 

- On the Nigerian Judicial system, the committee made specific recommendations aimed at restoring dignity to the judiciary which is losing credibility  by the day. 

- The committee recommended a review of the composition of the National Judicial council (NJC) but endorsed that headship and functions of the council be retained as contained in the constitution. Also review of the federal and state judicial service commission, with addition was recommended as most of the members of the NJC were members of the Federal and state judicial services commission as well.

- On sharia and customary legal systems, it was recommended that the status quo as provided in the constitution should remain while all matters emanating from the sharia and customary courts should end at the federal/state court of appeal as the case may be except in cases of constitutional significance, civil liberties and matters of overriding public interest. 

- On ways of removing delays in administration of justice, the committee recommended that rules of court covering both civil and criminal procedures as well as proper funding and outsourcing of the services of the legal aid council for efficient performance. It also recommended among others, that the practice of seeking leave of court in cases if mixed law and facts or facts alone should be abolished and that all cases from inferior courts should terminate at the state court of appeal except where issues of constitutional significance, civil liberties and matters of overriding public interest are involved. 

- Addressing the issue of independence of the Judiciary, the committee recommended that due process and fair hearing should be introduced in the process of removal of head of courts so as to confer greater protection and that arbitrariness and politicization of their removal should be stopped forthwith.

- Judgements of courts in Nigeria on the timely release of funds to the judiciary from the consolidated revenue fund should be enforced. 

- For greater financial autonomy of the judicial organ, it was recommended that the judiciary should be insulate from manipulative tendencies of other organs while all its funds (capital and recurrent) should be a first line charge on the consolidated revenue fund of the federation/state. 

- On appointment of Judicial officers, it was recommended that the positions of judicial officers should be advertised, done openly and transparently and essentially on merit. Those to be appointed should be interviewed and that the principle of seniority in appointment should always be considered. Similarly, in order to facilitate access to Justice, pre-action Notice, public officers protection act and the requirement of locus standi in Public interest litigation should be abolished while court ordered mediation and customary arbitration were to be encouraged to enhance alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). 

 - Amendment of Section 291(3)(a) of the 1999 Constitution to read: “Any person who has held office as judicial officer of Superior Court of Record for a period of not less than 10 years shall, if he retires at or after the age of 70 years, be entitled to pension for life at a rate equivalent to salaries and all allowances of serving judicial officers of equivalent rank - the system that requires judges to turn in a certain number of cases or judgments quarterly without regard to the quality of the judgments should be discouraged while the working conditions of Judges should be improved.

- Appeals from the National Industrial Court should terminate at the Federal Court of Appeal except for matters of weighty constitutional significance, civil liberties, and matters of overriding public interest with the leave of the court.

- On prison; the committee recommended that prison be removed from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent legislative list and that consolidated prison reform bill before the National assembly be passed into law as soon as possible. In addition, borstal homes and reformatories should be established in all states of the federation while fingerprints of every prisoner should be captured for records and information management. The committee also recommended that the issue of death penalty should be left for the states to decide.

- The committee saw the need and so recommended that tribunals of enquiry should be made an item under the concurrent legislative list just as well as establishment of electoral offences commission and electoral tribunal under the constitution; adding that the decision of such tribunals should not be subject the supervisory jurisdiction of the high court. 

- Convicted pregnant women or nursing mothers should be allowed to deliver and nurse their babies for two years before serving their sentences in prison. In addition, no awaiting trial prisoner shall be detained for longer than the period he or she would have served if convicted of the crime he is charged with.

- In order to make fundamental objectives and directive principles justiciable, it was recommended that inter Alia, the name "Federal Character Commission" be changed to "Equal Opportunity Commission" - same was recommended by the committee on religion as shared on my previous blog post. This according to the committee is to reflect it's mandate and scope; the National Health Insurance Scheme be expanded to accommodate all Nigerians; the universal basic education be extended to senior secondary 3 and that the socio economic rights contained in chapter 2 of the constitution be made justiciable as in chapter 4 while section 6(6)(c) should be retained to take care of rights contained in chapter 2.

- On National industrial court; appeals from the court should terminate at the federal court of appeal except for matters of weighty constitutional significance, civil liberties and matters of overriding public interest. aggrieved parties should have access to industrial arbitration panel without recourse to the office of the minister of labour.

- On election and electoral process, section 285 of the constitution which provides for 180 days for hearing and determination of election petition should be amended such that all interlocutory matters should be taken together with the main petition.  

- Cases of extra-judicial killings and human rights abuses are to be dispensed within a period of 12 months.

- Election petitions involving the position of Governor should end at the court of appeal, also election offences tribunal should be established to try electoral offences   

- Conference also asked for a provision for the conclusion of cases commenced before a Judge before transfer of such a Judge to prevent such matters starting all over again except in cases of death or retirement of such a Judge.

My recommendation during my 3 minutes speech;

- The need for a standing stenographer in court rooms.

- Introduction of the jury system - just to add some controversy and poke the lawyers.

- During court proceedings, lawyers should be allowed to wear suits while Judges wear the wig and gown. It's time we modernize our court rooms  - Some lawyers actually gave me a thumbs up on this while others almost strangled me, don't know they still revere the archaic outfit me. Oh my days! 

- I also spoke on promotion of Judges be based on quality of past trails and judgments.

The 117 page report of the committee on Law, human rights and legal reform report after much deliberation was adopted even though an item was bracketed in the report – the recommendation that the Chief Justice of the Federation be made the number 3 position in Nigeria, those for it argued that it is only fair to give the number 3 slot to the Judiciary as they are the 3rd arm of Government after the Executive and Legislative. Some however endorsed the committee report which suggest number 4 position in place of the current order of precedence which relegated the Chief Justice of the federation to 5th position in the nations protocol list. Some were completely against the recommendation suggesting that the status quo be maintained as the position of CJN is not an elected position so it won’t be fair to upgrade it. 

Well, we adjourned at 6:41 to resume at 9am the following day.