Acting Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, on Monday urged the Federal Government to appoint more judges to the Federal High Court.
Justice Tsoho during the special session to mark the commencement of federal high court 2019/2020 legal year in Abuja, said that this will help reduce the work load of judges.
He said that the federal high court judges were over burdened with workload in the out gone legal year, NAN reports.
Reviewing the just ended legal year, Tsoho said 116,623 cases were pending at the high court, 16,144 filed in a quarter, while 12,692 were disposed off.
He said that the records were evident that judges were over burdened with work in the last legal year.
“We therefore need to engage more judicial officers to help out”, he said.
“However, it does appear that there was no provision for appointment of judges in the current budget.
“I will make efforts to discuss with relevant stakeholders to see to the possibility of facilitating the recruitment of more judicial officers in the course of the year”.
Justice Tsoho noted that training of judges and staff of the judiciary to enhance professionalism was of paramount interest to the judicial authorities.
He said that the judiciary will work with the legislature and the executive to entrench constitutionalism in the federal judiciary.
He further disclosed that the federal high court now has amended civil procedure rules 2019 which came into force on the 10th day of May, 2019.
“The new rules contain certain innovations to meet with the dynamism in law and to bring the court at par with other courts in the developed world.
“Some of these include affidavit of non multiplicity of actions; Order 3 Rule 9(2)(d),a reinforced interpretation of the Territorial Jurisdiction of the Federal High Court, such that no leave is required for service of process anywhere within the federation (Order 5 Rule 31),” he said.
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