City Crime
Rivers State Judiciary And Access To Justice
According to Black’s Law Dictionary (nin-th edition) Access to Justice is “the ability within a society to use courts and other legal institutions effectively to protect one’s rights and pursue claims.”
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) considers access to justice as “the ability of people from disadvantaged groups to prevent and overcome human poverty by seeking and obtaining remedies through the justice system, for grievances in accordance with human rights principles and standards.”
Access to justice is an important aspect of the rule of law without which its tenets become moonshine. It is the lever with which any given justice system revolves. Indeed, access to justice is so important that it has become a basic right.
Unfortunately, many governments really do not understand that they sound rather hypocritical when they claim to maintain the rule of law without access to justice.
When there is access to justice, aggrieved individuals or parties can go to court and get remedies for civil or criminal wrongs meted against them: where there is a wrong, there is a remedy.
The insistence by Nige-ria’s apex court, the Supreme Court that processes be filed electronically to engender interactions or communications between it and practicing lawyers is a welcome development. Electronic filing if properly followed, is expected to facilitate justice administration.
Again, this development is laudable as it has narrowed the chances of impersonation by non-lawyers.
It is important to note that speedy dispensation of justice is one of the cardinal principles of the rule of law. This is because justice delayed is justice denied. But the e-filing in the state has been fraught with so much delay. Filing a motion exparte as a matter of urgency has become difficult under the new arrangement.
Access to justice is hindered or denied when there is unreasonable delay in bringing issues of urgent attention to the court. Delay defeats equity and makes nonsense of injunctive remedies. Under the present e-filing regime there is an unreasonable delay in the assignment matters to courts.
Section 17(2) (e) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended provides thus: “independence, impartiality and integrity of courts of law, and easy accessibility thereto shall be secured and maintained. “
Despite the express provision of the constitution, access to justice has been whittled down by many factors in Nigeria’s judicial system. One of the problems facing our judicial system is corruption. Many judges are corrupt and justice is for sale to the highest bidder. That is why judges in different courts with coordinate jurisdiction often churn out contrasting judgments on the same subject matter without compunction about abuse of court processes.
Many members of the Port Harcourt branch of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) have complained of the high cost of filing processes electronically at the Rivers State Judiciary’s Information Communications Technology (ICT) Centre and the delay it has occasioned.
The process of procuring justice must be affordable because if it becomes expensive and unaffor-dable, the aim of justice for all is blatantly defeated.
Justice Black said “there can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.”
The cost of litigation has worsened the plight of the common man who seeks remedy for either civil or criminal wrong.
A Port Harcourt based lawyer and human rights advocate, Chinoye Okoha Esq, who spoke with The Tide in Port Harcourt at weekend said, “e-filing is causing untold hardship to practicing lawyers.”
Mr Okoha explained that the purveyors of the e-filing might have had a good intention about the process but expressed surprised that nothing had been put in place to ameliorate the hardship faced by lawyers.
He described the process as satanic and expressed shock that even the purveyors hadn’t done anything to better the situation.
The Port Harcourt lawyer remarked that e-filing was a major impediment to access to justice.
Mr. Okoha noted that lawyers went through excruciating and harrowing experience to make e-payments.
He urged the leadership of the NBA to do a feedback on e-filing to the authorities of the Rivers State judiciary so that they could chart a way out of the lock jam.
He said access to justice would continue to be hindered unless the NBA confronted situation frontally and squarely.
He expressed regret that even affidavits at the Rivers State Judiciary could only be obtained by electronic means which often delayed or denied citizens’ access to justice.
Also speaking, another Port Harcourt based lawyer, Chijioke Agi Esq remarked that e-filing had blocked valuable income for practicing lawyers and averred that NBA was not doing anything to change the scenario.
He said that it was unfortunate that the bar was suffering and smiling in its present predicament.
“Everyone knows that this experiment isn’t working yet nobody wants to do anything,” he stated.
“We are not unmindful of the fact that the bar is having it rough under this e-filing regime but everyone is keeping quiet. We can’t continue like this”, Agi said.
Today access to justice in Nigeria remains a mirage so long as independence of the judiciary is a far cry. Access to justice can only be guaranteed when the judiciary is truly independent.
Justice Chukwudifu Oputa JSC (in blessed memory) in capturing the elusiveness and hopelessness of justice in Nigeria put this way; “In his search for justice and redress resulting in the effectuation of his rights, the ordinary citizen of Nigeria is caught up in the mess of rather vicious circle.”
Unfortunately, in Oputa’s time the tumour of lack of access to justice was benign but it has grown steadily to become malignant in the present time.
It is hoped that concerted action by the Bar and Bench will salvage our already decadent judicial system and restore access to justice.
By: Chidi Enyie