Slow adjudication: Reps seek more justices for Supreme Court

The House of Representatives has urged executive arm of the federal government to appoint more justices for the Supreme Court of Nigeria, in order to accelerate the dispensation of cases before it.

This was sequel to a motion moved under matters of urgent public importance on Thursday by Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Hon. Luke Onofiok, who noted that the apex court has been faced with plethora of cases, and due to lack of the requisite number of justices, its adjudication of justice was slow.

He said the Supreme Court of Nigeria as the apex and final court of the land with original and appellate jurisdiction over the entire country to adjudicate on disputes and controversies arising from any subject matter, let “is faced with the huge responsibility of handling high volume of cases with minimal number of justices”.

According to the lawmaker, the number of justices of the Supreme Court has been reduced to 13 with the recent retirement of Hon. Justice Amiru Sanusi from the court, and that the situation will become worse owing to the impending retirement of another justice of the court in few months from now.

“Section 230(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution prescribes the maximum number of the justices of the Supreme Court to be 21 and the court in its history has not had a full complement of the prescribed 21 number of justices”, he further argued.

He said “the reduction in the number of justices will slow down the dispensation of justice and affect the pace at which matters are meant to be determined, and will put the available number of justices of the court under immense pressure as there are many cases to be decided by the court”.

Onofiok expressed further concern that some cases stay undecided in the Supreme Court for over ten years and that as of now, the diary of the Supreme Court is full with no date for a new appeal until 2021, adding that “appointing new justices to the Supreme Court will accelerate justice dispensation, expand the course of justice and increase citizens’ access to justice”.

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