Fast-tracking justice dispensation through alternative dispute resolution

At the Special Court Session marking the commencement of the Supreme Court’s 2023/2024 legal year and the conferment of the prestigious rank of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) on 58 legal practitioners in Abuja on 27th November 2023, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, who retires in August next year upon attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70, appealed to Nigerians to be less litigious and more disposed to settling their disputes through alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

This, he argued, would free the courts from unnecessary case burdens, which overstretch the human and material resources in the judiciary. The CJN also advocated an amendment to the Nigerian constitution to prevent most cases from reaching the Supreme Court, aiming to decongest the apex court.
   
Giving a breakdown of cases that were decided and those pending at the Supreme Court, the CJN mentioned that a total of 1,271 appeals and motions were filed in the outgoing year, out of which the Supreme Court heard 388 political appeals, 215 criminal appeals, and 464 civil appeals. Similarly, the Supreme Court heard a total of 49 criminal motions, 153 civil motions, and two political motions.
 
On his part, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, urged the National Judicial Council (NJC) to expedite action on the process of appointing more justices to fill vacancies at the Supreme Court to decongest the pending cases. It is heartening to note that the Senate has confirmed 11 Supreme Court justices for the apex court.

We completely agree with the CJN and the AGF. To fast-track the dispensation of justice in our courts, litigants and their lawyers should refrain from filing frivolous and unnecessary cases, overburdening our courts, especially the Supreme Court. Not all cases filed in court should go to trial. Litigants and their lawyers should have more recourse to mediation, arbitration, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the settlement of disputes.

We also agree with the CJN that there should be an amendment to the 1999 Constitution so that most court cases would terminate at the Court of Appeal instead of the Supreme Court. There is no doubt that delay in the dispensation of justice occasions miscarriage of justice and undermines the justice delivery system in Nigeria.

For example, lamenting the inordinate delay in the dispensation of justice in Nigeria, Ebun Sofunde, SAN, who read the address of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (BOSAN) at the said Special Court Session, narrated that one of the legal practitioners conferred with the rank of SAN at that Special Session was only two years old when the case of Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd v Amaro & Ors was filed by his lawyer-father. The new SAN was born in 1981, and his father filed the case in 1983. The case was eventually disposed of in 2015, lasting for 32 years. By this time, the new SAN had qualified as a lawyer and even appeared with his father at the hearing of the same case at the Supreme Court.

Sofunde also cited the case of Attorney-General of Lagos V Lagos State National Sports Lottery Ltd (“NSL”). He said that the preliminary objection in the case lasted for 18 years. The suit was filed on 2nd February 2005. The NSL filed a preliminary objection challenging the jurisdiction of the court. The court dismissed the preliminary objection on 18th April 2005, and NSL appealed. In a judgment delivered on July 16, 2008, the Court of Appeal agreed with NSL that the High Court of Lagos State lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The Attorney-General of Lagos State instituted an appeal to the Supreme Court in 2009. The Supreme Court, on 31st March 2023 (18 years after the matter was commenced at the High Court!), held that the High Court of Lagos State indeed had jurisdiction and then sent the case back to the High Court of Lagos State for a determination on the merits.

The above two cases are like drops in the ocean, compared to the innumerable law cases pending in the country’s law courts. For example, it takes a minimum of 10 to 15 years in a normal situation to start and conclude a simple civil case from the High Court to the Supreme Court. In Lagos State, where the bulk of court litigations are done in Nigeria, filing a simple lawsuit through the newly-introduced digital filing process takes not less than two weeks.

Commercial litigants who could not tolerate this anomaly have stopped taking their cases to court. Others now resort to some forms of self-help, or other extrajudicial means in the settlement of personal disputes. Therefore, it is high time the law courts were decongested of cases to pave the way for the expeditious dispensation of justice in Nigeria. Justice delayed, it is said, is justice denied.

The CJN is correct to suggest that not all the cases filed in courts should proceed to trial. This is the rationale behind the introduction of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and the case management conference provisions in virtually all the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules in the various divisions of High Courts across Nigeria.

The idea is to decongest the courts by ensuring that many cases are amicably resolved by parties out of court through ADR and the case management conference without the need for trial in court. Therefore, ADR and the case management conference should be effectively utilised so that pending cases in the courts are expeditiously disposed of.
To be continued tomorrow.