Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state has called for decentralisation of the judiciary to reduce the heavy caseload of High Court Judges in the state, which according to him, hinders the administration of justice.
The governor made this known when the National President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr Olumide Akpata, paid him a courtesy call on Tuesday.
He said that ‘’on average, a High Court judge in Kaduna state handles about 250 cases.
“We have been making cases for the National Judicial Council to double the number of High Court judges in Kaduna state, which will reduce the case load to about 100 per judge which is still too high.
“It is an anomaly to have a unitary judiciary in a federation. I’m one of the major advocates of the decentralization of our unitarist judiciary to a federal one. We are pushing for the creation of State Judicial Councils that will handle the appointment of High Court judges in the states, because that is the only way that we will be able to take our fates in our hands.
“I believe that we have enough lawyers in the public and private sectors in Kaduna state, to get 20 judges tomorrow, if the State Judicial Council screens them and makes their recommendations. But we are constitutionally constrained as we speak. I’m happy that the National Assembly has started the process of trying to remove the bottleneck and I urge the Nigerian Bar Association to openly support it.’’
El-Rufai argued that decentralizing the judiciary will benefit administration of justice, enable more numbers of qualified lawyers in the private and public sectors and the academia, to be part of the judiciary.
The governor, who has a degree in law, further argued that ‘’bringing in outsiders always brings innovations and new ideas to improve the system. I do not believe that the only path to being a High Court Judge is to be a magistrate or state counsel. There are many other paths as other countries have shown and have produced excellent judges at all levels.”
