LAGOS JUDICIARY, PRIMUS INTER PARES –JIMOH IBRAHIM

[Mirror]

• Nigeria's criminal justice system cumbersome –Oguntade

The Lagos State judiciary has been described as the best in the country while its judgments is primus interpares (first among equals) when compared with others in the country.

This commendation was made yesterday by the Group Managing Director (GMD), Global Fleet Group and publisher, National Mirror Newspaper, Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, OFR, at the public presentation of the book, "A Reformatory Approach to the Criminal Justice System in Nigeria", written by Oluseyi AdeTona and Dare Oketade in honour of the Chief Judge (CJ) of Lagos State, Justice Ayotunde Phillips.

"Your judgements are primus inter pares (first among equals) when compared with other judgements in any part of the country'.

"It is important to note that Lagos judiciary is at the forefront and the best in the country. The judgements we receive from these courts are primus inter pares when compared with other judgements in any part of the country. I must commend the judges for their brilliant effort and particularly for your personal sacrifice for mankind. If you decided after being called to Bar to venture into business many of you would have been multi-millionaires by now, but you decided to be in the judiciary and help mankind and strengthen the law", he said.

Barrister Ibrahim who was the chief presenter at the book launch equally commended the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola and the state Chief Judge, for the roles they have both played in ensuring that the judiciary in the state is the envy of all. Ibrahim described the CJ as a brilliant jurist and hard worker who deserved to be honoured.

"The chief judge should be commend for tackling the problem of congestion and making the judiciary IT-complaint while the governor should be commended for the support he is giving the judiciary," he said.

On the accusation of corruption leveled against the judiciary, Ibrahim described this as figment of the imagination of those who are making the accusation.

According to him, the fact that one or two judges have corruption cases does not mean that the entire judiciary is corrupt. He advised members of the bench to be focused and not be distracted by unfounded accusations, reminding them that they are accountable to God and not to any man.

The publisher of National Mirror who bought the entire 400,000 copies of the books available at N15,000 directed the authors to distribute the copies to courts in Lagos, Ondo and FCT.

Also at the occasion the retired Justice of the Supreme Court, George Adesola Oguntade, described the country's criminal justice system as "too cumbersome and time wasting''.

The retired jurist said there were many things wrong with the nation's criminal justice system and expressed the hope that the book would be useful in the attempt to reform it.

He said: "All of us who have had contact with the practice of law in Nigeria will have known that there are many things wrong with approach we adopted in our criminal justice system. It makes the practice cumbersome and unnecessarily wasting lots of time."

Oguntade also bemoaned the condition of magistracy in Lagos State, saying a magistrate should be able to rise to eminence even without being appointed as a judge.

He said: "There are so many magistrates in Lagos State, I think as at now they numbered 100. At any given time, just a few of them are promoted to the High Court, the result is that many of them stay a whole lifetime of their career on the magistracy and that leads to frustration and lack of productivity."

The retired jurist stressed the need to create a cadre for the magistracy whereby the magistrates would be in a position to rise to a level which would be equivalent of the High Court judge.

He said the system could frustrate bright magistrates with potential to contribute positively to the growth of the judiciary.

In her remarks, Phillips called on the National Assembly to take the administration of prison system from the exclusive list to the concurrent list.

According to her, there is no justification why state governments should not be allowed to build prisons and have control over their management.

The CJ, however, regretted that even though she has released hundreds of prisoners from prison, their number kept increasing on a daily basis.

She said the implementation of the Lagos State Magistrates' Court Law would further improve the magistracy in the state.

In his remarks, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar stressed the need for reform in the criminal justice system.

Atiku, who spoke through Prof. Gidado, regretted that criminal trials were unnecessarily delayed.

He said: "It is obvious to most Nigerians that the nation's criminal justice system is seriously in need of reform. Our prisons are busting not only with convicted criminals but also with accused persons awaiting trial.

"Trials are unduly delayed, frivolous injunctions and technicalities are imposed all to delay and subvert the cause of justice."

Source: LAGOS JUDICIARY, PRIMUS INTER PARES –JIMOH IBRAHIM