As CJN retires…

She was sworn in as the CJN on July 16, 2012 and by November 20, 2014 when she would be retiring, she would have spent exactly 856 days in office.Major stakeholders in the justice sector agree that her tenure as CJN has witnessed commendable strides in the fight against corruption within the system.Before her preferment […]

She was sworn in as the CJN on July 16, 2012 and by November 20, 2014 when she would be retiring, she would have spent exactly 856 days in office.
Major stakeholders in the justice sector agree that her tenure as CJN has witnessed commendable strides in the fight against corruption within the system.
Before her preferment as CJN, court officers employed to assist judges were part of the rot as some unwholesome conducts of these judicial staff, like leakage of judgments before delivery, demanding bribes before the preparation of records of appeal, acting as go between for some overzealous litigants and some corrupt judicial officers, ostentatious life styles beyond legitimate earnings and host of other activities, were rampant.
These corrupt activities of some court staff raised serious issues as to the credibility and integrity of the persons who are employed to assist the judicial officers in the performance of their duties.
Some of the corrupt court officials at times solicit for and collect millions of naira from unscrupulous litigants on the pretext that they are acting for the judges handling their cases. Many judges and magistrates have been violently attacked by hoodlums on the mistaken belief that they did not perform even after money has been given to them through their staff. Many have been caught and disciplined but so many have so far escaped detection.
It is also a fact that one of the many issues afflicting the judiciary is the problem of inordinate delay in determining cases.
Many factors are responsible for this sordid and embarrassing situation.
Successive CJNs had introduced measures to combat these maladies.
Though the time is short, what the CJN has demonstrated is that even in the absence of constitutional amendment some administrative measures could be put in place to achieve the much needed judicial reform for quick dispensation of justice.
Upon assumption of office as CJN, she was confronted by these problems.
She discovered that one of the reasons why it was taking long to hear and determine cases was that many judicial officers had abandoned their job. They travelled abroad at will and abandoned cases assigned to them. In the main, litigants suffered.
A story has it that shortly after Justice Mukhtar came to the seat, she met seven judges of various courts in Nigeria she could recognise including a Supreme Court justice in one of the international airports abroad. Curiously, she had an encounter with the same Supreme Court justice on the previous day but he didn’t inform her of his intention to travel abroad. Besides, he was expected to sit on some cases at the apex court within those days he was away.
The first female CJN felt the lawlessness can’t continue under her watch of the nation’s judiciary. She therefore issued a circular directing all judges under the federal, state and Federal Capital Territory including her colleagues at the Supreme Court to seek for approval from her office through their heads of courts before undergoing any voyage abroad.
A register was opened to monitor requests by judges to travel and once a judge’s requests has hit the ceiling in a given year, subsequent request that year is denied. The penalty is a query for a judge that travelled without due approval from the CJN’s office.
Justice Mukhtar said that she didn’t know how bad the situation was until she directed all judges to seek for CJN’s permission through their heads of courts before travelling abroad.
The CJN lamented that it was highly absurd to observe that some judges can’t even deliver up to two judgments in a quarter.
“We are now thinking of looking at the performance evaluation of the judges for the purpose of discipline. If a judge cannot deliver three to four judgments in a year, there is no use keeping him on the bench other than to be shown his way out,’’ she said.
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has also been complaining about the attitudes of judges to work these days. Many will leave their work and travel for days or weeks abroad.
Some of the judges, Daily Trust gathered will even seek for permission to travel abroad while the courts are in session, despite  the six weeks holiday they are entitled to in a year.
These are part of the reasons the NJC undertakes performance evaluation from time to time, both at the trial and appellate courts, to determine productivity of the judges and their courts in the states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The CJN believes that judges should not be allowed to roam about and gallivant around the world like sheep without shepherds.
She believes that the leadership of the judiciary owes the Nigerian people a duty to make sure that judges conduct themselves in line with their oath of office and the code of conduct for judicial officers.
This is because judicial legitimacy is boosted by public opinion and a situation where the people believe that judges are an irresponsible set of people and that the leadership of the judiciary is helpless and cannot save the situation does not augur well for the country.
Justice Mukhtar’s directive on judges’ performance evaluation report and that judges must seek permission from the office of the CJN before traveling within or abroad has however not gone down well with some stakeholders who believed that the CJN is overbearing in the process of this battle against corruption.
Some stakeholders argued that judgments should not be written in a hurry since judgments, when read decades after they were delivered should be able to espouse the law and show erudition, adding that some of the reported English law decisions delivered almost a century ago are still cited today.
An NGO, Law Development Foundation (LDF) coordinated by a former President of the NBA, JB Daudu SAN, said that some of her actions were clearly and unmistakably unconstitutional and which if left unchecked will destroy the entire foundation on which the independence of the judiciary is erected.
LDF, however, agreed that it was common knowledge that before the emergence of the present leadership some judges were wont to be truant, leaving their jurisdictions without permission and thereby affecting output or productivity in a very negative manner.
According to LDF, a query to a judicial officer is the commencement of disciplinary action. The CJN has no power to initiate disciplinary action except in accordance with the Code of Conduct and Rules for the discipline of judicial officers, which stipulate that such process cannot commence without a petition received from a person complaining against the conduct of a judicial officer.
LDF said further that by the principles of federalism entrenched in our constitution, it is anathema (forbidden) for the CJN to wish to control the administration of federal and state courts.
“That function is left to the chief judges of the judiciaries of those states and the heads of the other federal courts such as the President of the Court of Appeal, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court and the President of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria. Where those heads of courts find it difficult to curb the conduct or misbehaviour of any judicial officer under their charge, it is their duty to bring it to the attention of the NJC not the Chief Justice of Nigeria such conduct or misconduct. Where the latter initiates a query directly even under the imprimatur of the NJC, he becomes a judge in his own cause and aside from the unconstitutionality of the entire process it is an unjustified intrusion into the constitutional functions of these courts. It is indeed a matter of great surprise and shock that some heads of state courts and indeed other courts were seeking permission from the office of the CJN before travelling,” it said.
LDF said that “while it agrees that there are needs to be disciplined in the system as it relates to the movement of judicial officers, such discipline must not be at the expense of the rule of law and independence of the judiciary where judges can be subjected to witch-hunt on account of other reasons unconnected with their movement.”
 The LDF said the practice or convention that obtained during the tenure of Justice Muhammadu Lawal Uwais, which was that heads of court merely notified the office of the CJN as Chairman of NJC, remains the best method of monitoring the movement of judicial officers.
It is for the head of court to give permission and the CJN to be appropriately notified.