The Chief Judge, John Tsoho, says a judge of the Federal High Court has an average of 400 to 500 cases in his or her docket.
PT: How can the problem of effective time management of cases be dealt with by judges, given the fact that lawyers in criminal cases often argue endlessly?Well, it is not an issue of contemplating, it has been tried, and maybe it has not been a widely publicised policy. It is not easy to meet, because of the high volume of litigation.
So, the presiding judge has a duty to hold lawyers in check by allotment of time, for instance. But oftentimes, that also has its constraint, because of this constitutional provision of fair hearing. That is what some parties always resort to by trying to allege that they are being denied fair hearing. One also has to be careful to the extent of intervention.
The Supreme Court has decided some cases like that of Bukola Saraki. The apex court ruled that the provision is not unconstitutional. So, for that reason, anybody still arguing about having proceedings stayed is just being mischievous.Yes. Actually, the process for recruiting new judges has been on but because of funding constraints, it has had to be split. By the Federal High Court Act of 2013, the strength of judges was raised to 100.
Secondly, if you are given approval by the NJC, you publicise that you require a particular number of judges. In 2019 while we were preparing for the 2020 budget, what we proposed was actually the appointment of 21 judges. When we got to the NJC, they couldn’t approve more than six. So, it is the vacancies for six judges that have been publicised so far. So, we had to shift the difference to the following year, which is 2021.
Like I have already said, you do have retirements, elevations to the Court of Appeal from here and unfortunately some people die.
Admittedly, yes when judges are transferred, some hardship will be occasioned both to the litigants and the court. My office, for instance, following the last posting exercise, has been inundated with applications for completion of part-heard cases. Some are genuine actually; but if you grant all that, it is going to impact on time management of the judges – they will have to leave their new stations and conclude cases. That in itself is tasking.
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