It is no longer news that most Nigerian courtrooms need infrastructural turnaround and that the judges and magistrates work under severe conditions that hamper the administration of justice in the country. Despite this unsavoury situation, some people are still calling for special courts to deal with corruption cases. In this interview with LAWRENCE NJOKU of The Guardian Bureau, Enugu, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice of the state, Anthony Ikechukwu Ani, addressed these issues and other sundry matters on judicial reforms. ExcerptsWHAT is your assessment of the judiciary since 1999'Honestly, the judiciary has done quite well. Forget about the few lapses here and there, that can be attributed to human factor. The judiciary acquitted itself in many respects. I am looking at some landmark judgments of the judiciary so far. Take for instance the case of Rotimi Amaechi, nobody knew that the Supreme Court could take the bold step it took at the trial to restore Amaechi. So it took a cue from the decision it gave in Ifeanyi Araraume's case because when it gave the judgment in Araraume's case, the case of Amaechi was a little shift from the case of Araraume. Before now, we had what we could call the supremacy of the party because when you had a political party, it was a matter of the domestic affair of the political party. It was the party's exclusive right to choose the candidates for itself and when it chose a candidate, the courts were not empowered to do anything about those candidates. But if you look at Araraume's case, the court said it was not just the exclusive preserve of the party, that the court could step in where there was injustice, where you had irregularities in the selection or emergence of a candidate at the primary level, during the primary election. And beyond Araraume, the court moved a little higher in the Rotimi Amaechi. You see a situation where the court said it must intervene to restore a candidate who was unjustly treated during the primary election and it restored Amaechi as the governor of Rivers State. That transcended beyond that process, the National Assembly took that into consideration when they were amending the Electoral Act. It is now clearly stated in the Electoral Act that the courts are entitled to look into the affairs of the parties as far as election of the candidates is concerned, it is contained in the amendment of the Electoral Act 2010. I am sure the decision in the Electoral Act was informed by the decision of the court, which was a pragmatic step, which the judiciary took. That has helped to strengthen our democratic process, because nobody can now say because you don't have a godfather within a particular political party you cannot emerge as a candidate, when you are unjustly treated, you can always turn to court. I believe that the judiciary has done very well in helping our democracy. There has been some human errors, misconducts here and there, but the National Judicial Council has been up and doing in disciplining judges where there is a misconduct.What urgent legal reforms have been embarked on for the administration of justice in Enugu State in the past four years'We have gone quite far. If I should take you back to the then Eastern Region, we used to have the 1963 Laws of Eastern Region. From there, we moved away to the Laws of the East Central State then, we didn't reverse all the laws of the Eastern Region in our days. But upon the creation of Anambra State, we reversed the laws and now have a set of Anambra State laws in 1986. Since the creation of Enugu State, we now have a set of laws of Enugu State 2004. In those reforms, we have been able to take care of so many things, some obsolete laws, which we inherited from our colonial masters from 1960 till about 1963. It is a continuous process. Despite the fact that we have the laws of Enugu State since 2004, we are still looking at those laws vis-a-vis the decision of courts as far as those laws are concerned and even the trend of the society generally because law is dynamic. It continues to change and I am sure, in due course, we are going to have a look at the laws of Enugu State to reverse the laws so that itcould meet the current trend. It is a continuous process.What is responsible for the over-crowded police and prison cells with persons awaiting trial in Enugu State, which many people blame on lack of diligent prosecution by the office of state Director of Public Prosecution'With respect to them, that is not a very fair assessment of the whole situation. It is not from the office of the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP), which is under my own office. I don't know any state in Nigeria, which has done that. Let me tell you what we have done in Enugu, which so many states are not doing. Before now, under the Criminal Procedure Law, you had a situation where the binding over cases, where the magistrates did not have the jurisdiction to try cases such as capital offences. What the magistrates did then was to bind over the witnesses and transfer the file to the office of the DPP. The file would now move from the police prosecutor in the court to the police headquarters, from the police headquarters then to the office of the DPP before the DPP would be in a position to vet the case file and then come up with a decision as to whether or not a prima facie case is made out for the person to be arraigned in the High Court or the person could be discharged. At the end of the day, the bulk stops on my table as the Attorney General. Since the Sullivan Chime administration came on board, we now have a practice direction that the file doesn't have to move from the court to the police and from the police to the office of the DPP. The file moves straight from that particular court because the court, after binding over those witnesses, now makes the consequential order that the case file should be transferred to the office of the DPP by the registrar of that court. So it now becomes a matter of days and that has helped us to speed up the process of getting case files and filing information when necessary or making recommendation for somebody who has no case, to be discharged. I don't agree that so many cases are awaiting trial in our courts, and again, you have to look at our crime rate. I know we have not done badly in Enugu State as far as decongestion of prisons is concerned. Since I came on board, I have visited the prison. I have seen the Comptroller of Prisons and I told him that I wanted to have all the list of persons who had not gone to the court since their arraignment in the Magistrate's Court. The man was so magnanimous to give me the list and right now, we are working on it to know why they have not had any date in the court and in the next few weeks, these people will have a day in court.The fees for filing cases at the courts appear to be relatively high. What is Enugu State government doing about it'We have done better than some states in this regard. We have the citizens' rights and mediation centre, which is set up by law.We have been trying to create awareness. This centre is under the Ministry of Justice. It is funded by the government and when there are cases like civil cases and even criminal cases, they will find a way of settling them. They go round the police divisions every week to find out why people are being detained and explore avenues to ensure that those people are released or charged to court as quickly as possible. So we have, as a government, a deliberate policy to ensure that people get justice as quickly as possible and if you go there, there is a team of lawyers working to ensure that no delays are entertained in any matter brought to them, at no cost.Why did the state government resort to court action over the strike embarked on by workers instead of seeking dialogue with the striking workers'I will, first of all, say that we found no reason in their action because we have paid the minimum wage of N18,000 in accordance with the law and paid arrears from April this year. They went on strike even when we had an order of the National Industrial Court restraining the judiciary workers from going on strike, when we had a judgment against the medical workers stating clearly that they were on essential services under the Trade Dispute Act and if you are on essential services, you cannot go on strike.That is what the people don't know. Their action affected the justice system in the state - the courts couldn't sit, the police cells were over-flowing and people callously sat back at home, saying they could not go to work unless they were paid minimum wage. Enugu State government paid more than the minimum wage and has paid arrears from April to August. So there is no worker in Enugu State who is being owed any minimum wage. Let us draw a distinction between salary review and minimum wage. What is salary review for God's sake' We have the Minimum Wage Act of 2011, which says that 'no employer should pay any worker anything less than N18,000 every month' and we are making the point that it is not everybody who is a worker. The administrative staffers are not workers under the law. The professional civil servants are not workers under the law and the same thing as technical staffers. So if you are talking about minimum wage, I think intention behind the issue is to breach the gap between the very poor and the other cadres of the civil servants. So when people talk about minimum wage, it follows that any government that is paying anything less than N18,000, that governmentis in breach ofthe provisions of the Minimum Wage Act. But as long as you are paying anything that is above N18,000, there is full compliance to the provisions of the Minimum Wage Act. It is a different thing if they are asking for a review and not necessarily the minimum wage, which we have paid and that is why we went to court to seek interpretation of that act.Do you think the judiciary has any role to play in view of the spate of insecurity in the country'The way we can deal with such matter is to be proactive and decisive, very firm in such matters. A criminal is a criminal and should not be treated with kid gloves. We have to be firm. The judiciary must be firm in that regard. It is a very big challenge to the judiciary but the provisions of the law have to be applied. But on the part of the Legislature, let us have an amendment to our Criminal Code and see whether we can improve on it and give it a more robust content to deal with this terrorism and all that. It is only after that the judiciary can step in. But I think the judiciary would need to be firm to deal with such matters.Most Nigerians are calling for special courts to try corruption matters. Do you support that'Now, if you say special courts set for corruption matters, why do we need to set special courts for such corruption matters' I don't think it is necessary. It is just like asking a civilian to go to the military tribunal. Every court should be allowed to deal with corruption cases. It is not necessary to set up any special court. But I see the fears in members of the public that the cases will be bogged down by the normal niceties, procedures, delays, hearings, but whose fault is all these delays' It is part of human factor and part of the problem we have in the society. Take for instance a situation where the judge will be recording in long-hand which is not fair and even if you put those recording materials in place, what about the infrastructure to back it up' What about the power supply, what about the capacity building' So we need to do something about bringing our judiciary up to date particularly with the issue of electronic recording and that is why you have backlog of cases. One judge had put in his resignation papers, according to him; he said he was having tingling sensations in his hand when writing. So, if you have a case in court, for hearing, let us be fair to those judges, if you are very serious, the maximum you can take is three or four. So if you have about 20 witnesses for 20 cases, how do you get about it' But if you have electronic recording system, the judge can deal with so many cases at a time, in a day. So, we must be fair to them, we must be able to look at copying from the West or copying from the advanced countries, you must look at what they are doing.How can we solve the issue of restiveness in the country'Let us meet together as a people, let us agree and go back to the basics. Let us, first of all, agree that we are one. By destiny, we have agreed to live together as members of one country.The issue of unemployment is part of it and it is an issue we must deal with because an idle mind is a devil's workshop, when somebody hasn't anything doing, he will begin to talk about one agitation and another. It is a problem in the society and we have to look at our youths and think of how to get them gainfully employed. You cannot stop it when people are hungry and looking for what to do and eat. It is a problem in the society, the best way to get out of it is to look at our youths and how to empower them. How do we engage them when they complete the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)' These are the things we can do to stop all these agitations. When somebody doesn't have food, no water to drink, that person will begin to look on government for one thing or the other. The person would look at the society generally as the cause of his problems. The best way to address the issue is to empower the youth.Is there any constitutional provision for youth empowerment'The Constitution, I think, in Chapter Two has something to do with youth empowerment. You have what is called Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, which is not justiceable. It says government will do this, government will do that, government will provide facilities but when government doesn't provide these facilities, you can't go to court to force the government to do that. It looks like a social thing. Well, let us call it social contract; but what we are saying is that the government should look at youth empowerment. However, the government is going to do it. I am sure it would help fight these agitations.
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