Katsina Multi-Door Court House, radical antidote for slow dispute resolution

ANDY ASEMOTA, Katsina

Katsina State Chief Judge, Justice Musa Danaladi Abubakar, says the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) window has succeeded in the recovery of over 90 per cent of Anchor Borrower Facility granted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as guaranteed by the state government.

Justice Abubakar, in his 2022 / 2023 New Legal Year address in Katsina, said without the initiative, the state government as a guarantor of the facility would have suffered deductions at source.

According to him, the State Governor, Aminu Bello Masari, had directed for legislation to ensure the backing of the law to establish the Community Conflict and Dispute Resolution Centres within the ADR mechanism having observed how otherwise minor disputes could be resolved without following the normal litigation process.

Justice Abubakar said: “We have gone far in drafting the law which will be forwarded to the Honourable Attorney General to prepare and submit to the House of Assembly as an Executive Bill.”

He charged all stakeholders in the justice sector to support the initiative, saying: “You must at all times see yourselves as most ministers in the temple of justice and therefore not feel threatened by the ADR process.”

The Katsina CJ revealed that the process, besides reducing the workload on courts, had resolved more disputes in three months than the entire court system in the state disposed of in one year.

Justice Abubakar, who noted that the Katsina Multi-Door Court House had been coordinating the ADR mechanism, lamented thus: “Majority of our populace lives below the poverty line and once involved in disputes, no matter how minor, it takes quite an unreasonable time and resources to resolve through litigation.”

On judicial appointments, the jurist appealed to the government to grant its Judicial Service Commission approval to regularize the appointments of 126 staff in various cadres that were appointed without following due process and therefore suspended and their salaries withheld.

“Some of them have acquired experience and benefitted from training and skills development at the government expense,” he pleaded.

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