Lower court judges are to enjoy consistent capacity building as resources permit so as to scale up their knowledge in critical aspects of their work.

Plateau State Chief Judge, Justice David Mann, gave the assurance at a one-day critical workshop for magistrates and area court judges held yesterday at Odilins Hotel in Jos.

The training was on how the lower court judges should know their limits when it comes to issuing orders to banks on financial-related transactions brought before them.

In an opening remark, Justice Mann said that his main focus as the State Chief Judge is to set the administrative baseline upon which the lower court judges are to thrive.

He recalled that lately, the exercise of desecration regarding ex parte freezing orders and the imposition of excessive and unfulfilable bail terms in some of the courts has raised serious administrative concerns.

Speaking on the topic, “Fund reversal, freezing and unfreezing orders in Nigeria, jurisdictional and statutory limits of Magistrate Court”, Justice Geoffrey Kamyal took participants through what they needed to know when confronted with applications for reversal of erroneous transfers, preservation of disputed funds, freezing of bank accounts and post no debit orders among others.

Justice Kamyal was emphatic and drew lines between an instruction to place a temporary restriction on an account and a judicial freezing order, urging the magistrate never to miss the point on two instructions that are common.

Another resource person, Dr. Arome Okwori of the Faculty of Law, University of Jos, while presenting a paper titled “Exercising Judicial Discretion and Safeguarding Constitutional Liberty Against the Onerous Condition of Bail in the Magistrates and Area Courts in Plateau State”, noted that the administration of criminal justice requires a balance between the states duty to protect society and prosecute crime “vis a vi” fundamental rights of persons accused of committing offences.

Okwori observed that the issue is significant before lower courts, which are the first judicial forum for arrested persons, adding that the Plateau State Administration of Criminal Justice Law 2018 provides the statutory framework for bail, seeking to balance individual liberty.