Discordant tunes have trailed the proposal to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices from its current 21 to 30 over delayed justice delivery by the Senate.
Stakeholders in the judiciary, especially lawyers, mainly hold the view that the solution to the slow pace of justice administration in the country’s apex court does not lie in increasing the number of Justices but in sustainable legal reforms.
But a sitting Senator, who sponsored the bill, Osita Izunaso, believes that increasing the number of those who preside over the voluminous cases will bring a lasting solution to the mounting backlog as well as improve the court’s efficiency.
He felt that the current composition is inadequate and overwhelming, considering the volume of cases reaching the court daily.
Although it is often believed that the wheel of justice grinds slowly but surely, implying that although the legal process is slow and meticulous, justice ultimately prevails, it amounts to a denial of justice when a matter stretches beyond expectations.
Several factors, predominantly heavy workload, have been blamed for the exceptional delay witnessed in the country’s justice administration.
For instance, records showed that 243,253 cases were received by the judiciary in the first quarter of 2024. Previous data indicated that not less than 6,884 appeals came to the court in the 2021/2022 legal year, 1,271 in the following year and about 1,124 in the 2023/2024 legal year.
In fact, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, identified heavy workload as a factor at the commencement of 2024/2025 legal year, where she announced that the 1,124 appeals filed in the previous legal year comprised 435 civil appeals, 269 civil motions, 219 criminal appeals, 102 criminal motions, 89 political appeals and 10 originating summons. Data for the 2025/2026 legal year is not yet available.
Noting that Nigeria’s Supreme Court remained one of the busiest in the world due to an upsurge in litigations, the CJN blamed the development on a legal system that supports the transfer of every case to the Supreme Court, and encouraged litigants to embrace alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to ease the burden on the apex courts.
“The culture of litigating every disagreement and appealing every lost case, no matter how trivial, contributes significantly to the backlog of pending appeals. This trajectory is unsustainable for a nation striving for economic development and human capital growth,” the CJN added.
But as part of the solutions to the challenges of heavy workload, Izunaso also proposed a major reform that will terminate trivial matters at the lower courts so that only cases of national or constitutional importance, such as terrorism, homicide and grand corruption, will get to the apex court.
A similar bill, which had earlier been sponsored in the House of Representatives by Mansur Soro and Oluwole Oke, suggested that more Justices sitting simultaneously would ensure the dispensation of more cases within a shorter timeframe. The bill reached the committee stage.
Although the suggestions seemed appealing to human reasoning, the argument over the number of justices and the excess workload has resonated frequently in public discourse and generated diverse suggestions.
Consequently, stakeholders are divided over the idea. While many felt that necessary reforms rather than increasing the number of justices would bring the desired remedy, others dismissed the move as a height of self-deception and far from the desired solution.
Former National President, Campaign for the Defence of Human Rights, Malachy Ugwummadu, held the view that while the bill was remarkable, an overhaul and promulgation of a well-deserved autochthonous constitution will suffice “over piecemeal adjustments, alterations and amendments.”
He noted that for a very long time, the Supreme Court barely managed to have its full complement of 21 Justices as presently constituted, which had also contributed largely to the accumulation of cases.
“However, this call by the Senate for additional nine Justices is clearly in recognition of the fact that in a country of over 220 million people, it is hardly ever sufficient that only 21 or even the proposed 30 Justices would be enough to handle a docket that attracts all manner of appeals from all the judicial divisions of the Appeal Court.
“The fact that cases have lasted for over two decades and in some instances, three decades, underscores the magnitude of the crisis in which most litigants and even witnesses or potential beneficiaries die before their matters are finally determined,” he said.
Also, a Port Harcourt-based lawyer and scholar, Dr Festus Ogwuche, backed the move for an increase because the apex court has been overburdened by cases over the years, and continuous delay makes the justice delivery system awkward.
Reiterating that justice delayed is justice denied, Ogwuche added that quick dispensation of justice is one of the attributes of a proper and well-harnessed judicial system, and delaying cases for too long buttresses a system bereft of seriousness.
According to him, an increase in the number of justices is better for the development of jurisprudence.
“Additional justices will curb the array of cases that the decisions are beginning to be complex and questionable, travesties that are beginning to affect the court itself. The country deserves a Supreme Court that is properly grounded and rooted in justice, fairness and objectivity, and parading a very minimal number of justices in the court portends constraints to the advancement of justice delivery,” Ogwuche said.
Another lawyer, Sylvanus Maliki, described the bill as one of the roads towards solving the problem of justice delay.
He, however, added that beyond increasing the number of justices, there is equally the need to amend the constitution to streamline the nature of cases that terminate at the apex court.
“There is also a need to decentralise the Supreme Court and do away with obsolete laws,” Maliki said.
But a lawyer and rights activist, Frank Tietie, doesn’t believe that expanding the number of justices from its current composition is required to enhance justice dispensation in the country.
In fact, he described the idea as the height of self-deception and far from the solution.
According to him, America is bigger than Nigeria with a more complex legal system and developed jurisprudence, yet it runs a successful legal system with only nine Supreme Court justices, a situation he attributed to the political will to restrict most cases from proceeding to the apex court.
“The Supreme Court, as a policy court, should not entertain every form of legal tussle.
To think that any matter in the lowest of courts in any part of Nigeria can actually find its way to the Supreme Court is the height of lack of foresight and proper administration of justice,” he said.
Similarly, Aboje Ogbu, a lawyer, believes that increasing the number of justices will not solve the problem when all manner of cases end up at the apex court.
He advised that every other matter should terminate at the appeal court, while constitutional and other critical issues may proceed to the Supreme Court.
“Even if they increase the number of justices to 100, it will not be enough when cases, including divorce from the customary courts, end in the Supreme Court,” Ogbu said.
Former Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu Branch and Convener, Fight Against Corruption in the Judiciary, Bayo Akinlade, said the solution lies in allowing criminal cases that commence at the high court to terminate at the Appeal Court, while other serious matters, including those involving a death sentence, proceed to the Supreme Court.