…Promise upward review of budget
By Doris Ferdinand
The House of Representatives committee on Judiciary on Monday frowned at the inadequate funding of the judicial arm of government .
The lawmakers lamented this during the 2021 budget defence of the National Judicial Council (NJC).
The Executive Secretary of National Judicial Council, Mr Ahmed Gambo Saleh had earlier said that their 2021 budget proposal is based on N110 billion ceiling given to them.
When asked by the lawmakers the logic behind the decrease in the allocation to the supreme Court for 2021 as against what obtained in 2020, despite the increase in the number of Justices.
According to the lawmakers, rather than reducing the budget, they should have maintained the benchmark if increase could not be achieved.
According to the Secretary: “The decrease is necessitated first by the ceiling of N110 billion given to us. There are a lot of proposals, a lot of appointments of judges in order to address the yearnings of the public for fast judicial system. So those faults have to be taken care of first.
“After the deduction of all the personnel what was left was shared among all the courts and all the judicial body. Each court and judicial body has decreased now. Because we have to make provision for salaries and allowances have to be made otherwise, there won’t be appointment.” He added.
The chairman of the committee, Hon. Inofiok Akpan Luke who was displeased with the development said:
“You have heard us and we are clear. Our position is that we totally frown at the reduction of what was appropriated to the supreme Court in 2020 especially against the background ofnrhe fact that 8 new justices of the supreme Court have appointed.
“There is need for upward review if not on the provision of 2020 Appropriation but specifically we frown at the provision of the sum of less than N10 billion that is N2 billion less than what was given in 2020 Appropriation. We are going to look into it. We are going to make our own proposition and rejig to allocate sums to areas that we see are critical.”
“We want to appeal to NJC not to see it as we’re encroaching. We are exercising our powers of legislation and budgeting. We are going to do the rejigging in the budget because we won’t sit down and see a reduction in the allocation to supreme Court when we have had new justices appointed.” He said.
Hon Luke said that courts and judicial body should not be seen as revenue generatimg agency as it is there to discharge social services so as to restore peace and order in the nation.
“The Court should not be a revenue generating agency. Otherwise it is going to wreck hardship on the litigants. Because if we begin to look at the Court and the judicial body as revenue generating agencies then the cost of that is going to be transferred on the litigants and that again will not creat the needed confidence for the citizenry in our judicial system.”
Luke also pleaded with the judicial council to also consider establishing more Courts in Akwa-Ibom. This he said will facilitate litigations.
