From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Federal Government has renewed its partnership committment with the Hague Institute for Innovative Law (HiiL) to ensure unhindered access to justice by all Nigerians.
This came as HiiL disclosed that one-third of the World population do not have access to justice while six billion people live in countries where rule of law is declining.
Besides, the institute which bemoaned the global declined of rule of law and justice, indentified domestic violence as one of the most serious legal problems in the country.
The Federal government made the commitment in Abuja during the presentation of the 2023 report of the institute titled ‘Justice Needs and Satisfaction” (JNS) in Nigeria.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), who was represented at the event commended the efforts so made by NiiL in achieving its set objectives.
His representative, Mr. Felix Okojie expressed satisfaction with the results of the research carried out by NiiL in three States of the country.
HiiL is an international organization reputable for creating more accessible justice by developing people-centred services, which they call “user-friendly justice”.
Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of NiiL, Sam Muller said the situation, which was also captured by the World Justice Project’s 2023 report, and which impacts on six out of eight billion people in the world, is depressing for people who wake up everyday to build a nation where peace and justice shall reign.
He, however, observed that change has started in the last five years with a movement towards people-centred justice.
He said a tasksforce consisting of leaders from different regions of the world, which made a thorough analysis of the situation and found that the cost on the economy and development can be measured.
“Two-third of people on planet earth do not have adequate access to justice, and somehow it is not getting better and we keep doing the same thing to improve,” he said.
The report explained that the aim of the JNS survey is to measure legal needs from a people-centred perspective.
“It asks people about their justice problems and their paths to resolving them, including the formal and informal justice providers they engaged for help.
” The focus is on understanding justice as it relates to people’s everyday lives and recognizing that formal legal institutions are not the only source of justice.”
The report identified disputes with neighbours, domestic violence, land disputes, crime, and housing as five most common legal problems in Nigeria.
It noted that the justice gap in the country can be “significantly reduced by allocating resources towards increasing fair resolution of land and crime problems, and increase public awareness through educational campaigns that promotes the prevention of domestic violence and encourage victims to report domestic violence incidents beyond their inner cycle.”
In her presentation, the Country Representative (Nigeria) of HiiL, Ijeoma Nwafor said the organisation has justice acceleration programme, scaling programme and innovation labs in Imo, Kaduna and Ogun states.
Also making a presentation, the Programme Director of Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda, Theresa Smout said findings from the research done in Imo, Kaduna and Ogun indicate that Nigeria has attained the level of outcomes, solutions and impact in achieving the aim of using innovations to close the justice gap.
She said Nigeria is followed by Ethiopia as the countries in this level in Africa.
The data show that 81 percent of Nigerians encountered a legal problem in 2023, one-third said the cases are still ongoing, while 82 percent of them considered the resolution fair or very fair.