Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike has said the provision of personal homes for judicial officers of Rivers\u2019 extraction would serve as good motivation to resist enticements of all forms capable of compromising the rectitude of their judicial functions.
He stated this, yesterday, at the Government House, Port Harcourt, after signing into law two bills passed by the Rivers State House of Assembly, and presented to him by the Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Martins Amaewhule.
The two bills are Rivers State Judicial Institute Law No. 8 of 2021, and the Rivers State Housing Scheme for Judicial Officers Law, No. 10 of 2021.
Wike pointed out that the law would contribute to promoting judicial independence and reduce all forms of corruption among judicial officers.
\u201cThe second bill which I\u2019ve assented to, has to do with the housing scheme. This is where I think, when we talk about autonomy, this is the main autonomy the Judiciary should be talking about.
\u201cAnd in carrying out judicial functions, one thing that gives people hope is shelter. Part of the reasons why people are corrupt is that they don\u2019t have the opportunity to own a house where they can put their heads at the end of the day, at retirement.
\u201cSo, for us as a government, we believe that one of the things that we do to stop corruption is to allow them to have their own house.
\u201cI don\u2019t want to see any Rivers judicial officer working in the Federal High Court, Industrial Court, Appeal Court or Supreme Court, indicted for corruption. I don\u2019t want to see that happen to Rivers indigenes.
\u201cGovernment must from the day of appointment, and on retirement, ensure they have their homes. If they say, they don\u2019t want, then, government can pay them the due financial equivalent in lieu. But it is our own responsibility to do so.\u201d
Wike explained that all judicial officers of Rivers origin serving in the state and federal judicial system were entitled to benefit from the accommodation that should be provided.
According to Wike, the initiative is novel and different from what Lagos State had done that only catered for their judges serving within the state and not extended to the federal judicial system.
\u201cIt\u2019s one profession that the moment you\u2019re retired, there\u2019s nothing you can do about the practice of law. If a medical doctor retires from civil service, the medical doctor can go into private practice and own his or her own hospital.
\u201cBut as retired judge, you\u2019re not allowed by law to practice again after service. So, it is not only for judicial officers who are working in Rivers State but judicial officers who are from Rivers State and also working at the federal courts.
\u201cWherever you are doing your work, you have no reason to complain because you have a home at the end of the day. So, why will anybody come to entice you for anything? And since it is not provided in the federal scheme of work, we have to care for our own people whether working here or outside.\u201d
Speaking about the Rivers State Judicial Institute Law No. 8 of 2021, Wike explained that the efforts were geared to support the National Judicial Council (NJC) through the National Judicial Institute (NJI) saddled with the responsibility of training judicial officers and other Judiciary staff.
According to him, the Rivers State Government would, by the law, see to it that, at least, twice in a year, judges, magistrates and other Judiciary staff access trainings that would acquaint them with the tools of their jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike has said the provision of personal homes for judicial officers of Rivers\u2019 extraction would serve as good motivation to resist enticements of all forms capable of compromising the rectitude of their judicial functions.He stated this, yesterday, at the Government House, Port Harcourt, after signing into law two bills passed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-277691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}