A nationwide strike of court workers in Nigeria is paralysing the justice system, resulting in extended prison remands for those awaiting trial or sentencing and lengthy delays for everyone else.
In March last year, Taiwo Ebun*, 27, was arrested for alleged armed robbery in Lagos. Since then he has been in detention.
He was held in a police station and then transferred to Kirikiri, a maximum-security prison just outside Lagos. His first court appearance was two months ago, one year after his arrest. The magistrate court set the trial for 21 April, but it was postponed to 5 May.
But both dates have passed without any movement in the case due to weeks of strike action by court workers belonging to the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN).
The union said the industrial action was to demand financial autonomy for courts, rather than relying on the often corrupt system of funding from state governors, who are regularly accused of misusing funds, with several convicted of fraud.
Nigeria’s constitution gives the judiciary financial autonomy from state governors and heads of courts access to a federal fund. But the government did not comply with this provision in the 1999 constitution until the union took action in 2014 – the second in three nationwide strikes by Nigeria’s court staff.
Last year, Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, signed an executive order to implement the provision at state level. But governors have refused to comply and threatened legal action.
The union said the dependence on the executive for funds has affected the day-to-day running of the justice system.
Shobowale Kehinde, chair of JUSUN’s Lagos branch, said: “If the executive arm of the government still pockets the [funds of the] judiciary, that means that for every piece of paper we have to buy, we have to go cap in hand to the executive arm of the government.”
Kehinde said that even though the strike had been primarily about the refusal of the state governors to stick to the law, the welfare of the court workers was also a union grievance.
Source: The Guardian
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