The judiciary recently took a giant step with its adoption of cutting edge technology in the management of cases. The commencement of the automation of cases using the Nigerian Case Management System (NCMS) is commendable. Justice Mahmud Mohammed, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), announced the commencement of partial implementation of the system while declaring open the 2016 refresher course organised for magistrates on current trends in law and administration of justice by the National Judicial Institute (NJI) in Abuja. The new system, which will run side by side with the old manual order of filing cases, will ensure automatic scanning of cases filed at the Supreme Court into an easily retrievable system for the speedy administration of justice. Justice Mohammed explained that the system, once fully operational, will ensure that “all cases regardless of the status of litigants will be administered more expeditiously and efficiently in our courts, using electronic tools that will speed up justice delivery immensely.”
We welcome this new dawn in our judicial system and commend its initiators. The new NCMS is said to be the basis of the current collaboration between our judiciary and the judiciaries of other Commonwealth countries. Two Caribbean countries, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, signed an MOU with Nigeria to this effect in February this year. To ensure that the new system is quickly embraced by the states, the National Centre for State Courts is also engaging with the new system.
This is a happy development in our judiciary, which is a crucial arm of government in a democracy. The gains from the implementation of a system like the NCMS at all levels of the judiciary are many. Apart from furthering the expeditious dispensation of justice, it will also improve the health of judiciary officers who spend long hours under the analogue and manual system of administration of justice. This is partly responsible for the unduly long delays in the adjudication of cases. Cases are allowed to linger indefinitely at the Supreme Court, thereby disregarding the legal dictum: justice delayed, is justice denied.
The Lagos State judiciary, under its then Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, (now Vice-President of Nigeria), embraced the automated system to enhance the speedy dispensation of justice in the state. Results from the state since then have showed a remarkable improvement in the administration of justice. This is as it should be. We enjoin all other states in the country to embrace this initiative to bring the entire judiciary in the country in line with global best practices.
A fully automated judiciary will guarantee quick filing of cases, ensure seamless retrieval of judicial records and significantly advance the doctrine of stare decisis (decided cases). These elements are important in the advancement of the judicial system in any country and we are gratified that Nigeria is on the right path.
The challenge that remains now is to rapidly spread the NCMS to the states. The CJN could not have put it better. “The future is here and now. So, we must seize this success as we anticipate a ripple effect in other jurisdictions and the various levels of the judiciary.” Until this innovation at the Supreme Court trickles down to all levels of the judicial system, we may not achieve the desired goal as those left out may still constitute a cog in the wheel of progress.
To avoid this unhappy outcome and ensure full compliance at all levels of our judiciary, a lot of investments have to be made on the NCMS. We advise all the relevant stakeholders at the federal and state levels to embrace this system with the utmost sense of responsibility. This will require the National Assembly to make adequate appropriations for the judiciary to keep this system running efficiently in subsequent national budgets.
Let the judiciary ensure proper training of its personnel to keep this system running. The leadership of the judicial arm of government should do all that is necessary to ensure full implementation of the system and also support its adoption at all tiers of our judicial system.
