TheHILL | NEWS | DECEMBER 13.
The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Judiciary, Rep. Onofiok Luke yesterday called for the establishment of a special intervention fund for the judiciary to enable it to perform its competing demands and challenges.
Luke made the call while on an oversight visit, with some of his Committee members, to Federal judicial establishments in Lagos.
The team, who visited the Court of Appeal, Federal High Court and the National Industrial Court in the Ikoyi area of the state, stated that the government must provide better living and working conditions for our judicial officers in the court.
Luke while addressing Journalists at the end of the visit said that the 2021 budget proposal from the National Judicial Council (NJC) for the judiciary is about N180 billion but it only got about N120 billion which is a far cry from the needed funding.He, therefore, insisted that the judiciary needs an intervention fund if the country wants to properly fund the third arm of government.
The lawmaker said, “If we can have an intervention fund for the entertainment industry or if the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) can have an intervention fund for the Agric sector there is need for a special intervention fund for the judiciary in the sum of N100 billion or N200 billion.
“This would take care of infrastructure, the welfare, emoluments and salaries of judicial workers”.
“The last time there was a review of the salaries of the judicial workers in Nigeria was about 13 years ago. if we are asking them not to be corrupt, though I am not saying poverty is an excuse to be corrupt, they must be well taken care of because we are all buying from the same market.
“With what we have seen on the ground in Lagos we are committed to improving the administration of justice in Nigeria, the House under the Honourable Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila is also committed to judicial reforms.
“So, it is our goal to create an enabling environment for the judiciary to operate. At the Court of Appeal we saw what was done there, the new retrofitted courtroom done by the NJC and we are going to recommend that this should be done across the country”.
“We are going to look at the budget and recommend that more retrofitted courtrooms should be done,” Luke said.
Also speaking during the visit, the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court, Emmanuel Gakko revealed that the new court complex under construction will be completed by March 2022.
According to him, the building which started in 2011 is about 81 per cent completed and that the contractors have promised to deliver the project unfailingly by the first quarter of next year.
Gakko thank the Federal government, the National Assembly and the NJC for the support it has given to the project which he maintained will improve the productivity of the judges and other support staff.
On his part, the Deputy Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal, Hassan Suleiman, called on the Lawmakers to intervene and prevent the revocation of the residence of the President of the Court in Lagos.
Suleiman alleged that some people are interested in taking over the property which was allocated to the court in 1978 by the federal government.
He also called for more funding to enable the appellate court to renovate the court building which was damaged during the aftermath of the #ENDSARS protest.
