The jurisdiction of State High Courts in Nigeria

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enefiok Essien
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
High Court ◽  
High Courts ◽  
Civil Proceedings ◽  
State High Courts ◽  
Legal Right

The jurisdiction of State High Courts in Nigeria is to be found in section 236(1) of the 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The section provides:“236(1). Subject to the provisions of this constitution and in addition to such other jurisdiction as may be conferred upon it by law, the High Court of a State shall have unlimited jurisdiction to hear and determine any civil proceedings in which the existence or extent of a legal right, power, duty, liability, privilege, interest, obligation or claim is in issue or to hear and determine any criminal proceedings involving or relating ot any penalty, forfeiture, punishment or other liability in respect of an offence committed by any person.”

State Courts

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Berkowitz ◽  
Karen B. Clay
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
State Courts ◽  
High Court ◽  
High Courts ◽  
State High Courts

This chapter examines how a state's colonial legal system and levels of political competition in the state legislature shaped the independence of judges on the state high court. It argues that the independence of judges in state high courts influences their behavior on the bench and thus economic and social outcomes. This is because judges face the difficulties of maintaining their positions. Thus, this chapter shows how judges facing Republican electorates were more likely to vote for businesses over individuals, and how those facing Democratic electorates had the opposite voting patterns. The chapter illustrates a model emphasizing these patterns, by plotting the relationships among legal initial conditions, political competition, and state courts.

An Evaluation of the Enforcement of Fundamental Rights and the Controversy of Jurisdiction of the Federal and State High Courts in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 59-78
Author(s):  
Bo Alloh
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The State ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
High Courts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
State High Courts

This article examines the issue of jurisdiction between various high courts on the enforcement of fundamental rights in Nigeria. Fundamental rights are derived from the constitution and are expressly entrenched in the constitution of a country. They vary from one country to another and are specifically enacted in a country’s constitution in line with the history and culture of the country. In Nigeria, jurisdiction is vested in both State and Federal High Courts with respect to the enforcement of fundamental rights. However, the jurisdiction of the State High Courts is ousted and donated to the Federal High Courts, once a case on fundamental rights falls under section 251 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The researcher adopted the doctrinal method of research. The objective of this article is to reveal that the concurrent jurisdiction of both the Federal and State High Courts to hear and determine applications to secure the enforcement of fundamental rights has led to years of seemingly unsettled controversies, academically and procedurally. However, this controversy has been settled in the case of FUT Minna v Olutayo. This article concludes that the Supreme Court decision in the case of FUT Minna v Olutayo supports the realisation of the enforcement of fundamental rights in Nigeria.

Appeals by the Prosecution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. King ◽  
Michael Heise
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
High Courts ◽  
Extensive Information ◽  
State High Courts ◽  
State Prosecutors ◽  
Rate Of Success

Scholarly and public debates about criminal appeals have largely taken place in an empirical vacuum. This study builds on our prior empirical work exploring defense-initiated criminal appeals and focuses on criminal appeals by state and federal prosecutors. Exploiting data drawn from a recently released national sample of appeals by state prosecutors decided in 2010, as well as data from all appeals by federal prosecutors to the United States Court of Appeals terminated in the years 2011 through 2016, we provide a detailed snapshot of non-capital, direct appeals by prosecutors, including extensive information on crime type, claims raised, type of defense representation, oral argument and opinion type, as well judicial selection, merits review, and relief. Findings include a rate of success for state prosecutor appeals about four times greater than that for defense appeals (roughly 40% of appeals filed compared to 10%). The likelihood of success for state prosecutor-appellants appeared unrelated to the type of crime, claim, or defense counsel, whether review was mandatory or discretionary, or whether the appellate bench was selected by election rather than appointment. State high courts, unlike intermediate courts, did not decide these appeals under conditions of drastic asymmetry. Of discretionary criminal appeals reviewed on the merits by state high courts, 41% were prosecutor appeals. In federal courts, prosecutors voluntarily dismissed more than half the appeals they filed, but were significantly less likely to withdraw appeals from judgments of acquittal and new trial orders after the verdict than to withdraw appeals challenging other orders. Among appeals decided on the merits, federal prosecutors were significantly more likely to lose when facing a federal defender as an adversary compared to a CJA panel attorney.

The First Pinochet Case: Immunity of a Former Head of State

1999 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Warbrick ◽  
Dominic McGoldrick ◽  
Hazel Fox
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Civil Proceedings ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Reversal Of Fortune

The case of Pinochet has aroused enormous interest, both political and legal. The spectacle of the General, whose regime sent so many to their deaths, himself under arrest and standing trial has stirred the hopes of the oppressed. His reversal of fortune, loss of liberty with a policeman, on the door, has been heralded by organisations for the protection of human rights as one small step on the long road to justice. For lawyers generally, the House of Lords' majority decision of 1998 that General Pinochet enjoyed no immunity signalled a shift from a State-centred order of things.1 It suggested that the process of restriction of State immunity, so effectively begun with the removal of commercial transactions from its protection, might now extend some way into the field of criminal proceedings. And it further posed the intriguing question whether an act categorised as within the exercise of sovereign power, so as to relieve the individual official of liability in civil proceedings, may at the same time, as well as subsequent to his retirement, attract parallel personal criminal liability.

scholarly journals The Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 as a harbinger for the elimination of unlawful detention in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tarh-Akong Eyongndi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Justice System ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Reasonable Time ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
High Courts ◽  
The Impact

SUMMARY Sections 34, 35 and 41 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999 CFRN) guarantee the rights to dignity of the person, personal liberty and freedom of movement. These rights connote that no one shall be arbitrarily arrested; anyone arrested shall be brought before a court of competent jurisdiction within a reasonable time, otherwise such detention is unlawful; where a person is lawfully detained, it shall be under humane conditions. Despite these constitutional safeguards, people continue to be detained in detention centres beyond the permissible periods without an order of court and in inhumane conditions. Thus, unlawful detention is one of the challenges confronting the administration of the criminal justice sector in Nigeria. In 2015 the National Assembly, in a bid to address the challenges in the sector, particularly unlawful and inhumane detention, enacted the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) which is generally perceived as revolutionary legislation owing to provisions such as sections 29, 33 and 34 thereof. These sections require the chief judges of the various High Courts to appoint a judge or magistrate to visit detention centres at least once in a month to review cases of unlawful detention and awaiting trial detainees. This article adopts a doctrinal research methodology in examining the impact of these provisions in overcoming the menace of unlawful detention in Nigeria. It examines the challenges that may confront the implementation of these sections of the Act, such as administrative bottlenecks and unscrupulous attitudes of the personnel of the various detention centres. The article makes vital recommendations on how to overcome the challenges of taming the negative tides of unlawful detention in Nigeria. Key words: Constitution; criminal justice system; detention centres; magistrate; Nigeria

Extradition Between European and African Countries: Overcoming the Challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-319
Author(s):  
Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
African Countries ◽  
European Court ◽  
Real Risk ◽  
Civil Proceedings ◽  
The Right

Although EU states use the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for the purpose of surrendering a person who is accused of committing an offence or who has been convicted of an offence, they use extradition when dealing with countries outside the EU. However, they use surrender when dealing with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Thus, extradition is one of the ways in which African and European countries (especially EU members) are cooperating in the fight against crime. Case law from courts in some African and European countries and from the European Court of Human Rights, the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture, shows that extraditions between African and European countries have been delayed or hampered by allegations of human rights violations in the requesting state. These allegations have focused on mainly two rights: the right to a fair trial and the right to freedom from torture. The European Court of Human Rights has held that the extradition of a person should not go ahead if his or her trial was or will amount to a flagrant denial of justice or where there is a real risk of being subjected to torture. Although African courts and international human rights bodies have also held that extradition should not go ahead where there is a real risk that the person will be subjected to torture or where his/her trial will be unfair, they have not adopted the ‘flagrant denial of justice’ test. The case law also shows that some people have challenged the legal basis for their extradition. This article highlights this case law and suggests ways in which some of the challenges associated with extradition could be overcome. The article demonstrates that courts in some African and European countries have considered the nature of extradition enquiries. In some countries, such as Kenya, courts have held that extradition enquiries are criminal proceedings. However, in the United Kingdom, courts have held that extradition enquiries are criminal proceedings of a special type. There is consensus that extradition enquiries are not civil proceedings.

Pandemic and PILs: A Study on the Approach of the High Courts in India

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Uday Shankar ◽  
Sourya Bandyopadhyay
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Public Interest Litigation ◽  
High Court ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
High Courts ◽  
The Supreme Court

Studies in Public interest Litigation (PIL) in India are predominantly about the Supreme Court's approach in meeting the ends of justice through indigenously evolved jurisdiction. The High Courts as important constitutional bodies are more often than not remain out of detailed discussion. As the High Courts enjoy concurrent jurisdiction with the Supreme Court with regard to PILs, this paper aims to study the pattern of invocation of the jurisdiction at the regional level. It surveys the variety of pleas and consequent action under PIL jurisdiction (or inaction, as the case may be) of different High Courts in India relating to covid crisis and consequential matters. To that end, it undertakes a survey of High Court orders or judgments from April to July, 2020. It seeks to lay bare the extent of demands that are made before the Courts through PIL. What kinds of action were expected from the High Courts during the pandemic? How did different Courts respond to such pleas? Were the directions and level of response homogenous or varied? The paper pursues these questions, and describes the pandemic though the lens of PIL in Indian High Courts. It goes on to argue that the High Courts in India need to take greater cognizance of their orders inter-se especially in PIL matters, as human rights protection through PIL cannot have contradictory voices.

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