By Sunday Ejike Benjamin
A Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Justice Dahiru Musdapher has warned against unnecessary delay in disposing electoral cases.
He said there was need to set up mechanism for quick disposal of electoral cases, if the 2011 polls would be meaningful.
The Jurist was speaking yesterday, in his address at the public presentation of two books on the practice and procedure of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, written by an Abuja based legal practitioner, Chief Ogwu J. Onoja, in honour of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu and
the president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami in Abuja.
The Jurist who noted that the nation's judiciary has, in recent time been subjected to ridicule, in cases of election petitions, added that: "election disputes in most cases drag on throughout the constitutional tenure of the candidates to the extent that, some election matters are still in court when the next general elections are coming up in about five months time".
He said the delay in concluding election petitions, had thrown up so many constitutional crises from tenure controversies to skewed electoral processes, pointing out that legal technicalities have continued to impede quick disposal of cases.
To reduce the delays in the dispensation of election cases, he said the number of members of election tribunal should be reduced from five to one and that there should be more than five tribunals per state, saying that, "if a single Judge can sit on murder cases attracting capital punishment, there is no reason why a single Judge should not sit on election tribunal".
Musdapher, who was the chairman at the book presentation, said the latent defects in most of the rules of adjudication in both criminal and civil matters had long been yearning for genuine and enduring reform and were only recently exposed because of the interests generated in the election petitions.
In his remarks, the author of the books, chief Ogwu said the books will guide both the apex and the appellant courts and lawyers in the trial of matters and hearing of appeals at all levels of adjudication.
He suggested a unified high court civil procedure rules for the country, saying that state high courts should subscribe to the unified civil procedure rules, 1988 as the prevailing scenario where all the 36 states and Abuja are running their high courts under 37 different high court rules is not healthy for practice and development of civil procedures rules.
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