It is an anomaly to have a unitary judiciary in a federation – Gov. EL-Rufai

The Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai,  has called for the decentralization of the Judiciary.

The Governor made the call when Olumide Akpata, national president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), paid him a courtesy call on Tuesday, in Kaduna.

The Governor stated that he is a major advocate of the decentralization of the Judiciary noting that it is abnormal to have a unitary Judiciary in a federal system.

His words: “It is an anomaly to have a unitary judiciary in a federation, I am one of the major advocates of the decentralization of our unitarist judiciary to a federal one,”

“We are pushing for the creation of state judicial councils that will handle the appointment of high court judges in states because that is the only way that we will be able to take our fates in our hands.

“I believe that we have enough lawyers in the public and private sectors in Kaduna state to get 20 judges tomorrow if the state judicial council screens them and makes their recommendations.

“But we are constitutionally constrained as we speak.

“I have been making cases for the national judicial council to double the number of high court judges in Kaduna state, which will reduce the caseload to about 100 per judge, which is still too high.

“I am happy that the national assembly has started the process of removing the bottleneck and I urge the Nigerian Bar Association to openly support it.”

Governor El-Rufai noted that decentralizing the judiciary will give more opportunities for qualified lawyers in the private and public sectors to be part of the judiciary.

The governor also said “bringing in outsiders always brings innovations and new ideas to improve the system”.

“I do not believe that the only path to being a high court judge is to be a magistrate or state counsel,” he said.

“There are many other paths as other countries have shown and have produced excellent judges at all levels.”