*Says Shutting Down Courts For Too Long Will Render Justice Sector Irrelevant

The former Alternate Chair, NBA Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL) and Principal Partner of Akaraiwe and Associates, Ikeazor Akaraiwe, has called for the postponement of this year’s annual vacation of judges of High Courts.

In a statement made available to TheNigeriaLawyer, Akaraiwe expressed concern that despite Covid-19 in 2020 which left the judiciary comatose for many months, judges went on vacation

He said the effect of the Covid-19 and JUSUN strike is catastrophic. Thus, going on vacation will render the judicial system ineffective

“It is my respectful view that the yearly vacation of High Courts should be somewhat amended this year in the light of the effect of the 10 weeks long JUSUN industrial action on justice delivery in Nigeria.

“It will be recalled that the justice delivery system lay comatose for several months last year due to the Covid – 19 outbreak.

“And hardly had the courts resumed under strict Covid-19 protocols last year than it was time for the annual vacation, which the superior courts of record went ahead to observe from mid/late July to mid/early September.

“It seems to me that the effect on justice delivery last year and this year of several months of shutdown of the courts has been catastrophic. Litigants have had their quest for justice bogged down by shutdowns in an already very slow system of justice delivery.

“The serial shutdown of courts with added vacations two years in a row, will certainly have the effect of rendering the justice delivery sector irrelevant as litigants will increasingly take the law into their hands or look for alternative sources of justice delivery, some of which are not necessarily dependable.” he said

He, therefore, called for the suspension of this year’s vacation for High Court judges till the end of August. He also called for the cancelation of yearly leave of Magistrates

He said, “I, therefore, suggest that the High Courts postpone their vacations to the end of August to enable them to sit from now till the end of August, a period of about ten weeks. This amounts to adding only four weeks to their calendar, and does not really compensate for ten weeks of lost time. But it is better than nothing.

“Thereafter, they may proceed on vacation for two weeks only until the middle of September. The proposal takes into consideration the fact that the courts were on ‘vacation’ for the ten weeks of the strike action with the partial exception of those courts which had no hearings but delivered judgments weekly during the said industrial action.

“This suggestion will of course not affect those states like Ebonyi amd Edo whose high courts sat throughout the industrial action.

“Similarly, the same consideration in mind, I respectfully advocate for the yearly leave of learned magistrates to be cancelled this year and sceptics for those magistrates who had to sit at police stations during the strike action to ensure that arrested persons were not detained longer than necessary or whose states were not part of the strike action.”

He clarified that his prescription for no vacation does not include the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal who have been delivering judgments.

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