Prominent legal practitioners, Prof. Itsay Sagay, Chief Joe-Kyari Gadzama and Mr. Bamidele Aturu, have kicked against the call for the establishment of a special court to try suspects of oil theft. The lawyers, who spoke separately with our correspondent on the telephone on Wednesday, said there was no need for such a court as the available courts and laws were competent enough to handle such cases. There have been calls from various quaters for the establishment of the special court in view of the rising cases of oil theft, a situation that has led to a significant drop in the nation’s revenue. Sagay, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said available courts in Nigeria, especially the Federal High Court, should be vested with the jurisdiction to try those suspected to have committed the crime. “It is not called for; it is not necessary. The courts we have can do that, particularly the Federal High Court can do that. We don’t need a special court for that,” Sagay said. Gadzama (SAN), toeing the same line of argument, wondered if there would be the need to establish special courts for all kinds of offences. He said rather than establishing a special court for oil theft, what was needed were judges with integrity. He said, “It is unnecessary to create a special court. Must we have separate courts for every category of criminal offences? “What we need are men of integrity and character as judges, prosecutors and witnesses in the sector. We have enough penal laws and courts to handle such matters.” On his part, Aturu, a human rights lawyer, said the Constitution needed to be amended to provide for a time limit of one year for the trial of corruption cases, and another six months for appeals. He said, “I don’t agree with the lazy attempt at throwing special courts at every problem. It is lazy because it does not address the root cause of the delays in the administration of justice system, such as corruption on the part of judges, obsolete laws and infrastructure. “We need to amend the constitution to provide for a time limit of not more than one year for the trial of corruption cases, and another one year for appeals at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court: that is, six months each at both appellate courts.” posted on August 15, 2013 at 12:00AM jtnng.blogspot/
Posted on: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 23:29:17 +0000
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