IN THE HIGHCOURTOFANAMBRASTATE
IN THE AWKA JUDICIAL DIVISION
HOLDEN AT AWKA.
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE HONORABLE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND COMMISSIONER FOR JUSTICE, U. N. UDECHUKWU KSC, SAN, ON MONDAY 16TH DAY OF MAY 2005, TO MARK THE INAUGURATION OF THE 2005 LEGAL YEAR.
I carry, and I bring to you felicitations and good-will messages from His Excellency, the Governor of Anambra State and members of the State Executive Council, on this occasion of the special court session to mark and inaugurate the 2005 legal year.
It is His Excellency’s wish that the blessings of the special service held to mark this occasion shall abide with us all and remain with My Lord, the Chief Judge, your brother judges, the learned Magistrates, and the Practitioners at the bar, learned members of the Nigerian Bar Association.
The administration of justice system is the fulcrum, which holds the political order and democratic governance in equilibrium. It is therefore significant that an occasion be set aside to remind all stake holders in the administration of justice system, as ministers in the temple of justice, of the essence of their being as champions of civil liberties and the rule of law. No other occasion meets this requirement better than the occasion for the inauguration of a legal year.
I heartily welcome all of us to this solemn session. I congratulate my lord, the Chief Judge and my lords the Justices of the HighCourtofAnambraState for a determined effort to decongest both the civil and the criminal cause lists before them even under very severe constraints. I extend the same sentiments to the learned Magistrates of the Anambra State Magistracy. Everybody knows that the courts have been operating under austere circumstances. I specially congratulate both the judicial officers as well as the practitioners who appear in our courts for making the available desirable when the desirable is clearly not available. You have collectively shown how tough you can be, by going on even when the going is rough. I commend the members of the bar for their resourcefulness in adapting to the Practice Directions in force even while criticizing certain aspects of them.
I congratulate members of the support and administrative cadre who have laboured to make this day and this event a reality and who from day to day oil the wheels of progress so that the judiciary may chart its course and make its motion unhindered. Sometimes they had raged like a troubled sea. Sometimes they had fluttered like tormented pigeons. Sometimes they had brought the entire system to a deadlock . May they find rest and release from their woes in God’s name.
It is my fervent prayer that the future should bring with it great improvement in the working conditions and working environment of every stakeholder in the administration of justice sector. I look forward to better and happier circumstances for the practice of law, for without the practice of law, the rule of law would have no meaning. The democracy we cherish would perish. The general populace would be the worse for it. But above all, we who glory in this noble cause as ministers in the temple of justice and repositories of the hope of the common man would loose our luster and lapse into irrelevance. May God spare us this ignoble end.
The Ministry of Justice has not faired too well within the last year. But I’m glad to say that we faired much better than we did in the previous year and are poised to do even better in the ensuing legal year. I must place on record my appreciation for the invaluable assistance I have been privileged to receive from my Solicitor-General, my Directors, and the various hierarchy of Law officers in the Ministry of Justice. We were able to activate more of our out stations so as to be better able to cover the various judicial divisions. I hope that the Aguata Judicial Division, which had been our soft underbelly, is being better serviced by the strong team which we deployed to that division.
Our out station at Nnewi is very competently manned and we have been able to cover all assignments within Nnewi Judicial Division, within the limits of our resources. Our Onitsha out station is also effectively manned and doing the best that can be done within the limits of our resources. The building accommodating us at Onitsha had recently been buffeted by very angry winds. I am relieved that His Excellency the Governor immediately he became aware of it made funds available for the repairs which I hope, would soon be effected.
We have difficulty in effectively manning the Otuocha division and the Ihiala division. Efforts are however being made to revamp our team assigned to both divisions. My Lord, the honorable Chief Judge and my Lords, the honorable presiding justices of these divisions, please continue to graciously accommodate our shortcomings.
The biggest problem confronting our DPP’s office is that of keeping pace with the enormous work involved in preparing and filing proofs of evidence for commencement of criminal proceedings at the High Court. It is not only that manpower is in short supply to meet the volume of work, the funds to service the paper work involved is also beyond the financial capabilities of the ministry.
It is for this reason that we came up with a plan to effect an amendment of the Criminal Procedure Law to enable criminal proceedings to be commenced at the High Court without filing proofs of evidence. I envisaged that this radical change would come under severe criticism both from the Bar and from the Bench and also from the academia. I therefore decided to seek a broad view consultation on the matter.
As I expected, the views are radically polarized. Some respondents said “do it” while others said “don’t do it”. In the end, the views expressed have been as profound as I anticipated. I thank all the respondents who most kindly reacted to my request for memoranda and opinions. I thank especially, my Lord the honorable Chief Judge, and my Lords, the honorable Justices of the High Court of Anambra State for their very serious though conflicting comments on the subject.
Evidently, the divergence of views on the proposed amendment has made our work more difficult because we now have to review every profound contribution made before we can take a decision on the matter after taking full advantage of your collective wisdom. I hope your expectations can bear a little more delay. I hope also that should we decide to seek further clarifications, you would continue to be generous with your response.
It is obvious that I continue to draw the ire of my professional colleagues concerning the vexed issue of grant of authority to private legal practitioners who wish to undertake criminal prosecutions on behalf of the Attorney General, but upon the initiative of private complainants as distinct from the official complainant, the Commissioner of Police. It appears I can never be vindicated, no matter what I do in the circumstance. The general complaint is that I am rather stringent and stingy with my discretion to grant authority to prosecute. But many of my colleagues including those who had asked for my authority to prosecute, had had occasions to turn in very vehement protests urging me to withdraw authorities to prosecute, which I had granted, to other counsel in cases in which the former are defence counsel, on the ground that prosecution in those instances were oppressive to their clients who happened to be the accused persons in those cases. Some others had even written in advance to request that I discountenance an application if made in specific instances. Others had succeeded in obtaining court orders restraining me from prosecuting their clients.
The lesson to learn from all this is that a lot of discretion is allowed to the Attorney General and he bears enormous responsibility to ensure that cases in which he grants authority to prosecute are those cases which he would have prosecuted himself. It requires that he must consider public interest and the need for prima facie case. I hope in the end my professional colleagues would forgive me for whatever wrong they perceive I have done either by granting any authority when I should not or by refusing to grant one when it would have suited them if I did or by choosing to prosecute when it would have suited them that I don’t. It is all part of an Attorney General’s work-a-day. A ratio of 4 grants to 1 refusal of authority to prosecute is not after all too niggardly.
As we launch forth into the next legal year commencing from today, I wish all of us bon voyage. May God continue to guide us as we discharge our noble duties as ministers in the temple of justice. As the organized labour would say, aluta continua.
Chief, the Hon. U. N. Udechukwu, KSC, SAN.
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