President Buhari receives the Report of Presidential Implementation Committee on the Financial Autonomy of State Legislature and State Judiciary in State House on 25th June 2019

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Post-COVID-19 : Nigeria’s Justice Minister rolls out plans for justice system

Per Second NewsApril 21, 20201 Mins read866

….advocates virtual courts, appointment of more judges at federal, state levels

In a major post-COVID-19 initiatives,

the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN), has called on federal and state authorities to introduce virtual court system.

Malami said there was need for paradigm shift in the judicial process and procedure for recovery of lost grounds occasioned by the lockdown that led to nationwide closure of court rooms.

As part of the plans, Malami, said technology should be deployed to tackle the backlog of pending criminal and civil cases.“Application of technology is not strange to our Justice Sector/Judicial System.

“The Judiciary adopted a Judiciary Information Technology Policy in 2012 to guide the use of ICT by the Judiciary. In this wise, the Supreme Court introduced electronic filing and this has also been adopted by some States’ High Courts.

“One major lesson from COVID-19 is that the Nigerian Justice Sector must seriously leverage technology in the improvement of its capacity and for facilitating fair and speedy administration of justice.

“Information technology is the tool we are majorly going to use to cover the lost ground in our judicial system and measures are already ongoing to address this in our judicial system,” Malami said in a statement.

He said in view of the current realities and in adjusting to the times, the Justice Ministry would assist the judiciary at federal and state levels to arrive at a workable mechanism for achieving the proposed reforms within the shortest time possible.
“We will continue with the on-going implementation of the National Policy of Justice with renewed vigour, while making necessary adjustments as may be required due to the COVID-19 disruptions.”