X-Raying Osinbajo: How he reformed inefficient, corrupt Lagos Judiciary as A-G

In this series titled “X-RAYING OSINBAJO“, News Band will examine the stewardship of Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, both as the former Attorney General of Lagos, and the current Vice President of Nigeria.

In this part, we will evaluate how Vice President Osinbajo reformed the inefficient and corrupt Lagos Judiciary with State Judicial Reforms and Institutional Reforms.

Read on:

State Judicial Reforms, Institutional Reforms

Background

During the 16 years of the military rule that came to an end in 1999, there was widespread inefficiency and corruption throughout the Nigerian legal system, most especially in the Lagos courts, being the busiest in the nation.

When Yemi Osinbajo was appointed Attorney General of Lagos State in June 1999, he started reforming the entire judiciary, relying on strong support from the state governor.

As head of a justice policy committee set up by the Governor to review the entire legal system of Lagos State, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo commissioned a widely publicised study that showed the judicial system to be suffering from rampant corruption and severe backlogs in the adjudication of cases.

When he served as Attorney General of Lagos State, Prof. Osinbajo is credited with undertaking far-reaching significant judicial reforms in Lagos State, addressing critical areas such as judges’ recruitment, remuneration, training, and discipline.

To address the problem of slow justice delivery at the Courts especially for poor people, he established appropriate institutions in the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) and the Citizens Mediation Centre (CMC) to give free legal advice and aid to the poor.

Following on in his capacity as Attorney General of the State, Prof Osinbajo started and led the reforming of the entire judiciary with an express aim to:

● Reduce the backlog of cases in the High Court.

● Extend the accessibility of the legal system to the wider population.

● Reduce the average delays and duration of commercial cases before the civil courts.

● Eliminate corruption and inefficiency within the system

● Nature of Intervention

● In 2000, as part of the Access to Justice Programme, five free Citizen Mediation Centres were opened in Lagos “as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism

● Appointment of 26 judges from diverse backgrounds to the High Court, bringing the number of judges to 50 and reducing the average age of judges from 55 to 44.

Also made significant efforts to improve the recruitment process of judicial officers.

● Formation of a committee to oversee the rewriting of the court rules and monitor strict adherence to said rules.

● Setting up of the Court Automation Information System (CAIS) which assigns cases randomly to judges, calculates court fees automatically.

This system helped to reduce the case backlog and the court delays.

● Working with the National Judicial Council to remove corrupt judges and magistrates and make the judiciary more efficient and diverse.

● Recommending improvement of the conditions of service and enhance the welfare of judicial officers to reduce propensity for corruption.

● Establishing transparent procedures and cultivating a culture of zero tolerance for corrupt practices.

● Addressing training deficiencies in the Judiciary.

● Recommended establishment of an Office of the Public Defender (OPD), to ensure justice for indigent suspects accused of a crime Impacts.

● The broad objective of the reforms was clear: to establish an honest, well-functioning, and accessible legal system.

Its achievements with regard to the commercial courts manifested very quickly:

● Courtrooms received infrastructure upgrades

● Case backlogs and delays in case management were reduced.

● Accessibility of Lagos State citizens to the judicial process was increased.

● A more efficient, accessible and fair civil justice system was achieved.

● Restored public confidence in getting effective justice through the Lagos State commercial courts

Those responsible for this feat were the then Governor of Lagos State, Ahmed Bola Tinubu and the Attorney General Yemi Osinbajo.

Read also:

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo – then, now, and beyond…

NB:

This report is pieced together by the IdentifytheRightLeader group, a political cum civic organisation geared towards examining various front-runners in Nigeria’s political space, aimed at identifying their impacts in both private and public undertakings and contributing its quota to salvage Nigeria.

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