CJN worried over pending cases in courts

The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, has expressed concern over the rise in the number of pending cases before courts in the country.

Justice Kekere-Ekun, made this known during the opening of a two-day annual national conference on judges’ performance evaluation with the theme, ‘Judgecraft, performance and the way forward’, on Tuesday in Abuja.

She said unless judges can justly and effectively execute their roles, public confidence in the judiciary would be lost.

She noted that as of the first quarter of 2024, there were 243,253 pending cases in the nation’s superior courts of records exclusive of the Supreme Court, comprising 199,747 civil cases and 43,506 criminal cases.

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“Therefore, it is imperative for us all to take a serious note of this alarming situation and for this purpose, we must re-focus our attention towards enhancing our judicial performance,” she said.

“To this end, I encourage your lordships to explore information technology options and case management innovations to enhance judicial performance.

“The introduction of digital case management systems, the Judicial Performance Evaluation Software (JPES), virtual courtrooms, e-filing systems, digital databases, web seminars, online meetings and advanced research engines provide a myriad of tools for efficiency in case deposition,” she added.

In his speech, the Chairman of the National Judicial Council Performance Evaluation Committee, His Highness, Justice Sidi Bage Muhammad, noted that apart from the huge number of pending cases in courts, there is another problem of consistently low performance of some judicial officers which caused the 106th NJC meeting to recommend removal of judges who consistently perform low.

He added that there has been an improvement in the case deposition rate since the committee started work with 1,319 returns every quarter.

Earlier, the Secretary of the NJC, Ahmed Gambo Saleh, expressed confidence that the work of the committee will enhance efficiency in the disposal of cases in courts.