Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, says Information Technology tools would be deployed in a measure to recover lost grounds in the country’s judicial system, following the lockdown over Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Malami said, considering the current realities, his ministry would work with the Judiciary at the federal and the state levels to arrive at a workable mechanism for achieving the plans within the shortest time possible.
According to him, the ministry would also continue with the on-going implementation of the National Policy on Justice with renewed vigour, while making necessary adjustments as may be required due to the COVID-19 disruptions.
He said information technology was the tool that would be used to cover the lost ground in the country’s judicial system and measures were already on going to address this.
Furthermore, the justice minister said, the adjustments would cover, the Courts’ Administrative Processes (such as filing of Court Processes), Regulation of Access to Court and even sitting arrangements during proceedings (to sustain the gains “we must have recorded in trumping COVID-19), tracking and retrieval of information from the courts, scheduling of court proceedings with strict time-allocation.”
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In a statement he signed on Monday, Malami noted that application of technology was not strange to the country’s Justice Sector/Judicial System.
“The Judiciary adopted a Judiciary Information Technology Policy in 2012 to guide the use of ICT by the Judiciary. In this wise, the Supreme Court introduced electronic filing and this has also been adopted by some States’ High Courts. One major lesson from COVID-19 is that the Nigerian Justice Sector must seriously leverage technology in the improvement of its capacity and for facilitating fair and speedy administration of justice,” the statement briefly said.
“Robust use of technological tools to conduct proceedings including virtual proceedings, (this would also enable the Justices/Judges to preside over matters in their chamber without being physically present in a formal court room, parties and their counsel will only connect through teleconference means) etc.
“Some of these adjustments are not simple and may require certain amendments of the Law (or Issuance of Rules of Court and Practice Directions) as may be necessary.
“The judges will be sitting and maintaining social distance while the lawyers’ interface with the courts through their digital computers should be considered in certain cases.
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“We expect the judiciary to keep supporting the Presidential Task Force on COVID -19 and consider how best to start opening up as soon as possible and to start tackling backlog of cases. We will start by seeing how much cases can be handled online or without a face-to-face interaction leveraging on the use of technology.
“As such the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, with support of relevant stakeholders, will see to:
“Empowering the institutions of the ACJA, 2015 to commence functioning immediately. For instance, Part 46 dealing with the administration of the Criminal Justice Monitoring Committee; Section 251- witness payment; sections 107 & 108 etc. The net result will galvanize the judicial sector into rapid mode to fast track trials and release of those who are deserving.
