Motion For The Making Of Application For Adjournment In Litigation To Be On OATH By Hameed Ajibola Jimoh Esq. – TheNigerialawyer

The issue of frivolous application for adjournment in a cause or
matter before a court of law has been generating annoyance among
the bench and the bar. Superior courts have held that such
application for adjournment should not even be made to arrest the
judgment of the court, yet, some lawyers handling some clients’
matters do not heed to these pieces of advice rather, they use this
as a tool to turn justice upside down and to pervert the cause of
justice.

Many of the times, some of them will always have their ways
while some failed. However, the lawyer from the other side is
always sad and unhappy with such conduct of his learned colleague,
just as his client is disappointed too! There are several reasons
fabricated by some of these lawyers ranging from the facts that:
they are sick; that they are outside jurisdiction and other lawyers
in the office are engaged in other matters in other courts; that a
relative died or an in-law i.e. being bereaved; that they are
sitting for an exam; etc. This also shocks the other lawyer from
the other side as the lawyer making the application will not even
call the lawyer from the other side and will not even serve him
such application earlier before the date for the matter or judgment
or ruling.

He only gets to court to conduct the matter for the day and to
only be served such application. With due respect, even the judges
have at several occasions been turned to bailiff to serve such
application or introduce same to the lawyer on the other side who
is then filled with disappointment! This has become the trend, with
due respect! Our courts too have been too accommodating at this
moment to accept such application. While some of those applications
in numbers are true, some (if not majority) are false and
unverifiable. This brief piece is of the recommendation that such
application for adjournment in litigation matters should be made on
oath so that where such facts stated becomes untrue upon verifiable
facts, then, such lie on oath becomes a perjury before the law.

This is the motion that this brief piece intends to raise and
thereby calls for memoranda from the readers and my learned
colleagues. I hereby move the motion that facts made in an
application for adjournment shall always be made or verified on
affidavit!

I await your support for the motion and expect that the
appropriate authority would take up this recommendation as a way of
preventing frivolous applications which are aimed at prejudicing
justice. May I also humbly submit that the Rules of Court and of
course, Practice Directions of Courts would be a good way for
achieving and implementing this recommendation.

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