The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has announced that draft legislation has been completed for the establishment of special courts to try certain offences in the country. The special courts will try offences such as corruption, kidnapping, money laundering, drug pushing, cybercrime and other economic and financial crimes. Prof. Sagay, at a recent anti-corruption summit in Abuja, explained that all that is left is for the draft legislation to pass through the required legal processes.
The plan for special courts is apparently a reflection of the frustration of the committee and the Federal Government with the rising incidence of the listed offences in the country. With about five million cases clogging Nigerian law courts, many of them argued and under appeal for more than 20 years, the prospects of timely delivery of justice on cases relating to corruption and the other listed offences are dim, if not hopeless.
Nigerians have sometimes expressed their frustrations with the nation’s slow judicial system through the lynching of suspects. This resort to jungle justice should not be heard of in a sane society.
Nevertheless, we do not believe that the resort to the creation of special courts is the way to address this problem. Most countries are able to get their justice system working satisfactorily without resorting to special courts and there is no reason Nigeria should not be able to do the same. We already have a surfeit of courts in the country. Section 6 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, supports hundreds of courts spread across this country. These courts are vested with authority to handle all cases. Federal High Courts in every state enjoy limitless jurisdiction, the state high courts are in hundreds, and they have authority to try almost all the cases that need to be adjudicated. We also have Customary and Sharia courts whose decisions can be appealed at the appeal courts on customary and sharia matters.
It is, therefore, difficult to make a case for special courts in Nigeria. The shortcomings of our courts are well-known. Their major problem is that they are too slow. The correct response to this problem is to speed them up, not invent another court. If the judges in the regular courts are believed to be corrupt, the solution is to report them to the National Judicial Council (NJC) which is statutorily empowered to weed them out. It is not to establish new courts. If we create special courts, will we also create special judges? Other countries have had problems with their judicial systems in the past. We should learn how they dealt with the problems.
We are in the digital era, with voice recognition, automatic translation and seamless voice and video recording. The courts can be digitalized to improve their speed and efficiency. If the law demands that judgments must be handwritten, it should be amended. The slowness of our justice delivery system is a reflection of poor time management and low productivity. It is not true that the output of judges cannot be measured. With careful case processing, chief judges should know the judges who are not pulling their weight and make the necessary corrective recommendations.
The push for special courts is a throwback to the military era when we had “special military tribunals” which ended up in controversy, in spite of the good intentions behind them. Special courts reflect the abdication of our responsibility to reform the nation’s derelict justice system. The courts should be computerized, the judges retrained, processes digitalized and our court system brought into the 21st century. If we create special courts now because we are all anxious to quicken the trial of corruption suspects, are we not likely to be tempted to set up other courts each time we are dissatisfied with the pace of the system?
The fight against corruption will succeed as long as it is transparently pursued, is devoid of suspicions of political victimization and is able to maintain public trust. Special courts are not a substitute for a credible judicial system.