Assessing The Challenges of Area Courts In The Administration Of Justice:A Case Study Of The Federal Capital Territory Abuja.
Background to the Study
An Area Court, being a court of 1st instance, is an integral part of the Federal Capital Territory Judiciary which bears the heavy weight of the tremendous burden of the administration of justice system, which also come into contact with the greater percentage of the citizenry, and to this, the idea of the citizenry as to the concept of justice and its image may very well depend on what e see, hear and perceive about it.
Prior to the arrival of the colonial masters, there had been the existence of what was called the “alkali court” mainly manned by a renown Islamic scholar, and was duly administered and controlled by the Emirs and Chiefs. In 1956, however, there was a law promulgated applicable to the whole Northern Nigeria known as Native Courts Law which conferred power on the Chief Justice of Northern Nigeria for the establishment of Native Court all over the then Northern Nigeria, and this continued until 1967 when Nigeria was splited into twelve states. The newly created states in the then Northern Nigeria adopted the same law with an amendment which culminated into the establishment of the present Area Court by virtue of the Area Court Edit of 1968.
In 1976, Nigeria was also splited by the creation of more states giving the total number of nineteen and Abuja was made as the capital of Nigeria. Originally, Abuja was carved out of then Kwara, Benue/Plateau and North Western States; however, Area Court was already established in those states and to that, the Court exists prior to the creation of the Federal Capital.
In 1990, there was a collation of laws among which was the Area Court Act[1], thereby gave the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja to establish Area Courts by warrant under his hand.
In 2010, the Act[2] was repealed and re-enacted by the National Assembly which was signed into law by His Excellency President Goodluck Ebele Azikwe Jonathan (GCFR), and this is the law that is currently in operation. The court was established for the purpose of achieving justice easily, speedily and cheaply, that is with less cost of litigation, however these tenets or principles of achieving justice waned away due to the practice adopted by the judges and the system, and this made the court to face too much criticism arising out of bribery and corruption, embezzlement, incompetency on the Continue reading Assessing the challenges of area courts in the administration of justice