Poor Budget Releases To Judiciary Amidst Increasing Roles

To whom much is given, from him much is expected, have been an
age long statement found even in the ecclesial books. But what
happens when the responsibility devolved upon a person or body
becomes so astronomically larger or inversely proportional to the
authority or resources to assume the burden? Perhaps, this is
almost the situation the judiciary has found itself in the recent
years, and has contributed largely to the much discredited
appraisal of the body by the general public. Curiously, the
situation is assuming alarming proportion.

While President Muhammadu Buhari had allocated N100 billion to
the judiciary in the budget estimates he submitted to the National
Assembly for 2018 Appropriation Act, the federal legislature in its
wisdom increased it to N110 billion, because it is the same N100
billion that was appropriated for the 2017 fiscal year.

Curiously, the Federal Ministry of Finance have not been
releasing funds to the judiciary in line with the N110 billion in
the 2018 Appropriation Act. Executive secretary of the National
Judicial Council (NJC), Ahmed Gambo Saleh who confirmed this
development which was aired in the AIT’s 8pm network news last
Friday November 9, 2018 added that budgeted fund being released to
the Third Arm of Government is highly marginal.

A head of one of the judiciary agency told our reporter that the
situation is so disturbing and making it difficult to run the
judiciary on the grounds that while expecting N100 million
releases, a timesthe sector could hardly get up to N10 million.

In the speech he delivered at the 2015 All Nigeria Judges
Conference, President Buhari urged the Judiciary leadership to
carry out various reforms to position and portray the
administration of justice system as humane and efficient, adding
that, ‘’the Judiciary must go the extra mile to sanitize itself and
improve its capacity to act independently, courageously and
timeously’’.

‘’This administration is committed to the financial independence
of the Nigerian judiciary in accordance with extant laws. We
believe that the judiciary must be treated fairly and must be
treated in much the same way as the executive and the
legislature’’, President Buhari concluded.

Constitution Fourth Alteration Bill President Buhari assented to
in June this year, grants financial autonomy to the State Houses of
Assembly and the States’ Judiciary.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National
Assembly Matters (Senate), Sen. Ita Enang, had stressed the
importance of the law saying that with the signing into law of the
Constitution Alteration Bill the Judiciary in the states would also
enjoy similar financial independence as their budgetary allocations
would no longer go through the budgeting process of the executive
arms at the state level, but would be transferred directly to the
account of the judiciary.

“Therefore, upon this signature, the amount standing to the
credit of the judiciary are now to be paid directly to the
judiciary of that state, no more through the governor and no more
from the governors’’.

But the law has been there except that state governors who are
law onto themselves would rather observe it in breach, despite even
a subsisting court orders mandating them to transfer what’s
accruable to the state judiciary.

A governor of one of the north central states has arrested
allocation to the judiciary of his state for six months running
without a blink of eyes, just because the leadership of judiciary
in his state failed to carry out his filthy instruction.

Back to the real judiciary challenges. In the Constitution (4th
Alteration) Act, No. 21, Buhari assented to,there was amendment to
Section 285 authorizing the court or tribunal to suspend Ruling on
preliminary objection or interlocutory issue relating to
jurisdiction and deliver same at the stage of final judgment. It
inserts six new sub-sections that is (9) – (14).

While new Section 285 (10) states that ‘’A Court in every
pre-election matter shall deliver its judgment in writing within
180 days from the date of filing of the suit; new Section 285 (12)
says ‘’An appeal from a decision of a Court in a pre-election
matter shall be heard and disposed of within 60 days from the date
of filing of the appeal’’.

In other words, the Constitution Amendment No. 21 mandates the
pre-election matters to now follow trajectory of election petitions
for determination. The new law, which sets the timeframe for
concluding before election any pre-election matters that might be
taken to the courts, is a further amendment to Section 285 of the
1999 Constitution and the previous amendments through the Electoral
Act of 2010.

Whereas the previous laws had dealt with anticipatory challenges
to the election and setting the time frame for settling in court
any post-election matters that may arise from an election, the new
amendment seeks to address the disputes arising from pre-election
exercises before actual election is conducted

Indeed, over time it had shown that the previous laws, which are
the combined effects of Section 285(5) (6) and (7) as amended, and
Section 134(2) and (3) of the Electoral Act 2010 did not anticipate
certain political and electoral machinations in the course of the
parties choosing their candidates for an election and which, of
course, had usually led to bigger disputes and prolonged
litigations after the election. The previous laws in Section 285(6)
provided that “An election tribunal shall deliver its judgment in
writing within 180 days from the date of the filing of the
petition”.

A similar restriction was placed by subsection (7) that: “An
appeal from a decision of the election tribunal or court shall be
heard and disposed of within 60 days from the date of the delivery
of judgment”. These provisions of the Constitution were also
adopted verbatim by Section 134(2) and (3) of the Electoral Act
2010. An interpretation of these provisions merely concern itself
with irregularities during an election, which are to be resolved in
the courts afterwards.

The import of this amendment is the increase in constitutional
duties devolved upon the judiciary. This is why the current
attitude of the federal government in making inappropriate releases
to the judiciary is in negligence of the duties or burden being
heaped on the third arm of government.

What makes the ongoing maltreatment of the judiciary or paltry
releases bizarre is that politicians have been trooping to file
pre-election matters, ostensibly increasing the workload of the
judicial officers. Indeed, it is the same attention, devotion,
deployment of judicial officers to contend with the demands of
determining the election petitions that are required for the
pre-election matters or appeals.

Former CJN Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar issued on November 15,
2013, the Supreme Court (Criminal Appeals) Practice Directions,
2013, enjoining all Criminal Appeals relating to the offences of
Terrorism, Rape, Kidnapping, Corruption, Money Laundering and Human
Trafficking to be heard and determined expeditiously.

When he hosted a delegation of the judicial arm of government
led by the CJN, Justice Onnoghen at the Presidential Villa, Abuja
on October 6, 2017, President Buhari directed drastic and urgent
action to decongest Nigerian prisons, saying they were overcrowded
and constitute a national scandal.

He said the prisons were over crowded by up to 90 per cent,
adding, “We need a new approach to prisons decongestion. Urgent new
measures should be put in place to speedily decongest prisons, not
only in the interest of justice, but to save cost for prisons
maintenance and enhance the welfare of prisoners.”

While giving pictorial view of the situation, the Nigerian
Prison Service (NPS) on December 15, 2017, put the total number of
inmates in prisons in the country at 72,384 with 48,527 (67.04%) of
these awaiting trial inmates, meaning only 23,857 have actually
been convicted by the courts. The prisons are also congested
because official capacity of prison system is 50 153; in other
words our prisons are over-congested or having occupancy level of
125.9%. The Federal Government also expects the judiciary to reform
criminal justice system in order to decongest the prisons in the
country. For much is expected, much has to be given.

Of course, nation’s prisons are to be decongested by treating
expeditiously all criminal matters by the same number of judges
that must deliver on pre-election cases, election petition matters,
and try over 2,306 corruption related cases across the country.

Culled LEADERSHIP

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