Lawyer alerts CJ on court procedures in Anambra, Enugu

Sylvanus Eze, Awka - 21.02.2008

A legal luminary in Anambra State, Mr. Cyprian Okafor Anah, has alerted the Chief Justice of Nigeria and Nigerians that the current procedures for trials in Anambra and Enugu states’ High Courts are capable of escalating tensions in the judiciary if not checked.

He said the procedures allegedly copied from Lagos State had raised consternations in the nation’s laid down jurisprudence, particularly with the “Evidence Act,” just as he expressed joy that no other state had copied this legal system.

He warned that if this problem was not nipped in the bud now, in two or three year’s time, the Supreme Court would be saddled with thousands of cases on fundamental procedural errors.

According to him, “It has become necessary that all stakeholders, including the National Judicial Council (NJC) should look into this malaise”.

In a seven-page statement entitled, “A time bomb in our judicial system”, and made available to the newsmen in Awka on Wednesday, Anah said, “in this alien procedure, one hears a kind of motor-park language, “front-loading” where in everything is thrown in irrespective of what the established laws say, “maintaining that it has become necessary that everybody joins hands to arrest what he called impending danger which may blow up right in our faces.

“For over a hundred years of our legal system, it had been basic that actions taken out by writ of summons are usually done on pleadings on which cases are built; those pleading are merely facts of the case, the facts become evidence when a party testifies on them in the witness box on oath.”