By Ikechukwu Nnochiri, Abuja
Forty-two years after it was established, the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, NICN, on Monday, marked its first legal year celebration.
President of the Court, Justice Benedict Kanyip, while flagging-off the 2020/2021 legal year of the court, revealed that a total number of 6, 095 cases are currently pending in its docket. He identified Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Ibadan as areas with the highest caseload, noting that filing of cases reduced owing to COVID-19 pandemic.
“Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, to be specific, as at 13 March 2020, I had called for the figures of pending cases in Court. The figures revealed that the Court had 6, 596 cases in its docket across the country, with Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Ibadan leading in that order in terms of the caseload.
“Today, the total number of cases that are pending are 6,095. This means that 501 cases were disposed of between 13 March and 30 September 2020.
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“COVID-19 did not allow for much filing if cases; but it did not stop the Court from sitting and disposing of cases.
“Judges of the Court, in line with the Practice Directions and Guidelines 2020, sat physically and virtually all through the COVID-19 lockdown, and took the opportunity to dispose of especially cases that were at address and judgement stages”, the NIC President added.
He decried that litigants are not enthusiastic about using the mediation route of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Center of the Court for settling their employment/labour disputes.
“For instance, between 2019 and March 2020, litigants and their counsel agreed to only 66 cases being referred to the Center. Out of this figure, only 18 were settled.
“35 were not settled and so were returned to the courts that referred them in the first place.
“As at today, however, the figures show that in the last one year, the ADR Center of the Court received 20 matters for settlement, 9 of which were resolved; and of the remaining 11, six were not settled and so were returned to the Court that referred them to the ADR Center.
“The remaining 5 are still undergoing mediation/settlement. The utilization of the ADR Center is thus one area we intend to take a closer look at if our policy thrust of shortening trial time is to be achieved.
“The present COVID-19 pandemic has even made it the more so as measures must be taken to reduce the interface between courts and the users of Court’s services. We believe that ADR will come in handy here”, Justice Kanyip stated.
In his address at the event, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, stressed that the NIC was created to handle special matters aimed to promote industrial harmony and enhance peaceful co-existence among employers and employees of labour.
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Malami, who was represented by the Solicitor-General of the Federation, Mr Dayo Apata, SAN, said judges of the Court must be upright and unshaken at all times in order to foster and promote public confidence in all judgements and rulings that emanate from the Court.
“May I also use this opportunity to urge my learned colleagues here present and those absent to cooperate with the National Industrial Court in ensuring that the dignity, integrity and credibility of this Court is not put to ridicule.
“We must collectively shun fraudulent practices and to render sound and unbiased advice to our clients based on laid down laws and not our if sentiment or pecuniary gains.
“We should also not be seen to be encouraging our clients in a bid to ridicule this Court into doing the impossible.
“As ministers in the temple of justice, we must together foster the desired growth for a better society, because this Court on its own can only do little as permitted by law”, Malami added.
