The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Justice Walter Onnoghen, has said that an independent judiciary is essential in ensuring the requisite high quality of justice and fair, impartial determination of matters before the courts.
Justice Onnoghen said this in his keynote address at the opening of the 2017 refresher course for judges and Kadis at the National Judicial Institute (NJI) in Abuja yesterday.
The CJN, who was represented by Justice of the Supreme Court Justice Tanko Mohammed, an independent judiciary is one of the foundations of free and democratic values.
“It is therefore, our collective responsibly to remain committed in promoting the independence of the judiciary for impartial administration of justice,” the CJN said.
He urged participants at the refresher course to remain steadfast in tackling the challenges of inefficiencies in courts operation, poor court’s infrastructure and corruption for an excellent judicial performance, adding that we must all put our hands on deck to maintain and observe high standards of conduct so that the integrity and respect for the third arm of government is sustained.
Earlier, NJI the administrator, Justice Roselin Bozinmo, said the theme of the refresher course is modernising judicial practice and procedure is directed towards adopting current issues in the field of ICT.
She said that the refresher course would offered an opportunity to interact and exchange ideas among participants to explore the use of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism as a modern trend in administration of justice, particularly in civil matters, including commercial cases, land and family cases among others, stressing that this will check delays in the courts.