By Jide Oyewusi

Sir: If there is something the National Judicial Council (NJC) has to do as a matter of urgency, it is to proffer solutions to the highly sluggish justice system in Nigeria.

It’s often said that laws are made for man and not the other way round. If there are some factors working against rapid dispensation of justice, it is high time they are addressed once and for all and Nigerians given a new lease of life.

Everyone agrees that justice delayed is justice denied, why then must Nigeria’s judiciary continually act as if quick dispensation of justice is impossible, unachievable or unattainable? Why is seeking justice in Nigeria more of a wide goose chase, and a larger percentage of cases are settled out of court? How do we make our justice system work in a manner that can restore people’s confidence in the judicial system? These are questions the NJC should answer because Nigerians are tired of a justice system that is not only unjust but also time wasting.

Right from lodging complaints with the law enforcement agency, there is a major problem as nothing would be done unless the complainant offers money. It is now an open secret that whoever is lodging any complaints at any police station must pay or be ignored. Yet, .offering money to lodge a complaint is not even a guarantee that the officers would render any real help except the complainant is truly ready to play ball..

The only area of interest to the officers at the station is how much the accused is able to cough out to facilitate his quick discharge from custody. Most cases only get to the courts when the accused is unable to comply with the demand at the station especially where the accused is of no fixed address and has no one to come forward for settlement?

And then getting to the courts is to face another gridlock. Indeed, charging an offender to court through one’s lawyer presupposes that all the party involved are ready for a long drawn judicial process that’s extremely cumbersome to contemplate. When a case is filed and a date is fixed, it can only be heard if the two parties involved are present at every court proceeding, failure on the part of any of the parties to show up translates to postponement, and that can go on for years.

This is one area the NJC should step in and come up with strict laws to restore decorum and sanity. Whichever party is absent during the hearing of cases should be doing so at their own risk.

Besides, no case, no matter its complexity, should take more than a month to settle. This can be achieved through recruitments of a large number of judges as are required to handle the multitudes of cases.

Judges may also run shifts even at nights to ensure that all cases are dispensed within record time. When court procedures take like forever, lawyers will continue to be the losers because most people would avoid the courts and lawyers like a plague. All these recommendations are possible where there’s the determination and will. The ball definitely is in the court of the National Judicial Council in conjunction with the Nigerian Bar Association.

Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International and Friends of The Denied Inc Nigeria