THE Federal Government gave out recently that arrangements were in full gear to establish a special court to handle such cases as corruption and kidnapping in the country. Announcing this in a news conference recently, the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, SAN, said his Committee had finalized a plan for the establishment of the court. The raison d’être for such a special court could be, first, that the Federal Government, intent on fighting corruption in its own way, does not trust the existing conventional courts; secondly, that there is tardiness in litigation in the existing conventional courts; thirdly, that the penalties meted out to culprits are too lenient to serve as a deterrent to others who may want to commit such offences; fourthly and finally, that the existing (conventional) courts may rely (guided) too much on the law, the rule of law and the due process of the law to be useful to this corruption-fighting government.
To the foregoing plan or move to establish a special court for kidnapping or graft cases, we dare say a big NO! Although paragraph (j) of subsection (5) of section 6 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) allows the National Assembly to establish “such other courts as may be authorized by law to exercise jurisdiction on matters with respect to which the National Assembly may make laws”, we wish to remind the Federal Government (National Assembly) that section 6 of the Constitution already establishes a plethora of courts, including, but not limited to, the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal (with many Divisions), the Federal High Court (also with many Divisions), the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, the High Court of a State (with many Divisions as well), etc.
The above courts and others established by the Constitution are enough to dispense criminal or civil justice in the land. We dare say that new or special courts or tribunals are a superfluity. If the problem with the existing judicial system is the tardiness of litigation, the government should computerize the existing courts, just like the Supreme Court contemplates and like is already in place in Lagos State, to send longhand-writing by Judges into the dust bin of history. On the other hand, if the government’s headache is corruption in the Judiciary, it should make the National Judicial Council (NJC) to sanitize the Judiciary because the Judges to be appointed in the special courts, if and whenever established, will not be recruited from Mars!
Not a few Nigerians entertain more than a sneaking fear that a special court or tribunal will not obey the rule of law in trying trumped-up or real offences, the vast majority of which “offences” are likely to be committed by the opponents of the ruling party. A democratic dispensation should not have the trappings of military rigorism, exemplified by special courts or tribunals such as were associated with the military (Buhari) era of 1984-85. The State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree No. 2 and the Special Military Tribunals, all of 1984, which sent countless innocent persons to Kirikiri maximum security and other prisons and many to their early graves, are cases in point. Establishing courts or tribunals, other than those enshrined in the Constitution, smacks of militarism and redolent of military absolutism, and should not be allowed in a civilian dispensation.
Where the Judges and magistrates in the present court system require more training to cope with the rigours of trying graft cases, they should be trained and possibly be re-trained. Where the courts are not big enough, Government should expand them spatially or recruit more Judges to cope with the number of anticipated triable cases.
Prof. Itse Sagay, SAN, an erudite man and former(?) human rights attorney, and his Committee should look in other directions for more democratic and sane ways to tackle the ogre of corruption that bedevils the Nigerian nation space. You do not set out to solve a problem by creating bigger problems in the process.