On Osinbajo’s challenge to NBA…

This week, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo called on institutions like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to ensure the effective administration of justice for building a society with strong moral values.
Speaking during an interactive session at the 58th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja, Osinbajo said beyond government actions, every Nigerian has a responsibility to ensure that there is consequence for wrongdoing.
He said that “if you look at the whole question of how to develop a moral society, a society that is driven by values and principles,” one of the major issues is to understand where your problem comes from and how to resolve that problem.
In Nigeria, he said that there is moral and institutional decay, citing systemic corruption as an example.
“It (corruption) is systemic,” he said.
“This is a sort of thing that had eaten so deep into societal fabric, and it’s difficult to simply say that you can do that by just being exemplars of moral conduct….There is a need to establish a system of consequence for misdeeds, for wrongdoing.” The Vice President said it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure that there is consequence for misdeed.
He, however, observes that there is a moral dilemma as to how consequence should be visited on misdeeds.
“One of the major problems we have had is with the legal process, ensuring that the legal process is able to deliver justice within a reasonable time, especially where the matters concern issues of public corruption,” he said.
The Vice President, rightly so, laments that there are several cases pending in courts while the government is, unjustifiably, frequently criticised for failing to secure convictions of corrupt people.
To hit the nail on its head, the Vice President said that “all of this has to do with our administration of justice system, and we are very much a part of it and so I think that there is a sense in which, to an extent, we must accept some responsibility.” This cannot be far from the truth.
For too long, lawyers and the courts have frustrated the law from taking its course in the society, through mainly delay tactics and employment of technicalities in cases.
Agreed, the judicial system must employ thorough means and fairness to ensure justice, but a situation where some people devise means to frustrate good intentions of the noble system must be resisted.
And, in this wise, none other than the NBA is compelled to serve as a vanguard.
For example, in England, Osinbajo said, the lawyers’ regulatory body accepts responsibility for the discipline of lawyers, even when lawyers engage in dilatory tactics in courts.
“So, if a lawyer wants to delay a case as a strategy for either winning the case or hoping that, years after, the matter would be forgotten, that kind of lawyer would lose his shirt in any other jurisdiction,” and what stops that from happening in our clime? Unfortunately, dilatory antic becomes an accepted tactic, dilatory tactic is part of our system of doing business, either because lawyers here are working hand-in gloves with mainly corrupt politicians or are incapable of prosecuting cases to their logical conclusion.
Of course, one of the problems inhibiting the rule of law and proper administration of justice in Nigeria today is the rise in the abuse of court process by lawyers and their clients, sometimes with the active connivance and participation of some unscrupulous judges.
Because laws are sometimes very complex and often incapable of providing definitive interpretations, some lawyers capitalise on the limits of the rule of law and the weakness of the Nigerian legal system to abuse the court process thus undermining the capability of the judiciary to dispense justice in the most efficient and effective manner.
The abuse of legal process occurs in many ways, but in general it refers to abuse of right of action, a situation when litigants and their lawyers convinced that their actions have no basis in law but for malicious purposes or motives file frivolous cases in court.
Cases in which notorious criminals with the help of their lawyers obtain court immunity and injunctions restraining the police and other security agencies from investigating or prosecuting them, frivolous election petitions and filing cases in courts that obviously lack personal and subject matter jurisdictions with the sole aim of using the initiation of the legal action to frustrate the wheel of justice, using the appeal process to delay justice and the pursuit of political calculation in the name of rule of law are very rampant in the Nigerian legal system.
Unfortunately, the Nigerian legal system which should protect the legitimate rights of all is very ineffective to apply a counter measure aimed at checking these abuses which in most cases, waste the tax payers money, judicial resources and violates the rights of the innocent party defendants.
While several crooked politicians and corporate criminals are the main sponsors of this charade called lawsuits, lawyers smile to their banks even as the media have field days reporting courtroom drama and theatrical behaviour of counsel.
Some judges who do not want to be left behind in the melodrama also use the opportunity presented by the abuse of legal process to jostle for media attention by engaging themselves in unethical judicial activism that have negative consequences on the rule of law and democracy.
But if we must end corruption which has become cankerworm in our society, stunted our development and deprived many people of enjoyment of their rights, nothing should be done, directly or indirectly, to promote and sustain corruption and abuse of judicial processes.
Specifically, if the country must develop, people from all sectors and strata of the state must join hands to wrestle corruption to the ground.
Like Osinbajo said, beyond government, strong institutions such as the NBA must rise to the occasion, in this respect, caution and regulate its members.
Lawyers must show the way and vow never to allow a situation where the administration of justice is ineffective because once it is effective, our effort to build moral society would be undermined.

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