Govt mulls special divisions within judiciary to handle corruption cases

Following the recurring loss of court cases in its anti-corruption war, the Federal Government is considering setting up special divisions in the courts to try such cases.

This is being considered as an alternative to setting up earlier proposed special courts, which would have exclusively tried corruption cases and other such serious crimes.

Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, told BusinessDay that since it would take the whole process of an amendment to establish a new court, the government is in the process of setting up a special division within the courts, to handle its high-profile corruption cases.

“There are a lot of considerations on the table. On the issue of special courts, you know what it takes to set up the courts are all stated in the constitution and to have a new court there must have to
be an amendment.
“There is a consideration of setting up special divisions within the courts we currently have now. That is on the table. I do not want to expand on the others, so as not to preempt the government,” he told BusinessDay in an enquiry.

Recently, the anti-graft war suffered a string of losses, as the courts either acquitted those accused of fraudulent practices by the Buhari’s government, or unfroze the accounts of those who were alleged to have proceeds of fraud deposited in their bank accounts. Following these developments, the Presidency had recently summoned the heads of anti-graft agencies, and prosecuting agencies to the State House, to respond to the mounting losses in  the fight against corruption in the country.

The Federal Government had last week said it had filed an appeal against the decision of a federal high court in Abuja, that exonerated Adeniyi Ademola, a judge; Olabowale, his wife and John Agi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. Ademola who is accused of receiving bribes to give favourable judgements was cleared of the charges along with his wife.
A Presidency source had at the time, confirmed that the government had filed a case in the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) against Ademola and his wife allegedly “for living above their means and failure to declare their assets”.

Analysts had also earlier warned that the special courts proposed by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, could take forever to be established because of the processes it has to go through in the National Assembly. Since setting up a new court would require the amendment of the constitution, it will take a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly and a three-quarter majority of all the state houses of assembly to accomplish.

The Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) had come up with a Special Crimes Court Bill, 2016, proposing that special courts be set up to exclusively handle corruption cases, and others, including narcotics, human trafficking, kidnapping, cybercrime, money laundering and other related offences.

The bill had been sent to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, for consideration and onward transmission to the National Assembly.