The Nigerian Bar Association has rejected a proposal by the Senate to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court bench from 21 to 30.
The proposed measure aims to address the growing backlog of cases and enhance the efficiency of the country’s apex court.
According to the sponsor of the bill, Osita Izunaso (Imo West), the current number of justices at the apex court is insufficient, even after the 2023 appointments that brought the bench to its full constitutional complement.
Izunaso stated that despite having 21 justices, the Supreme Court remained overwhelmed by the alarming volume of cases it received daily.
He suggested that expanding the bench to 30 justices would enable the court to form additional panels and accelerate case resolution.
“If we have 30 justices, it allows the formation of at least five panels simultaneously. That way, more cases can be handled at a faster pace. Some litigants are being given hearing dates as far ahead as 2027 and 2028,” he noted.
Reacting to the bill, NBA President, Afam Osigwe, SAN, told Sunday Punch that the solution to the Supreme Court’s challenges lied in constitutional amendments rather than merely increasing the number of justices.
Osigwe added that increasing the number of justices would not address the systemic issues, stating that even with a full complement of 21 justices, the court struggled to cope with its workload over the past two years.
He argued that constitutional amendments should focus on limiting the types of cases that can be appealed to the Supreme Court.
“When the number of justices was about 15 or 16, there was a clamour that there should be a full complement of the courts to 21. In the last few years, the number of justices has risen to about 21 and they have managed to give their sufficient, but the workload has not reduced.
“The justice delivery system at the Supreme Court has not been as effective and efficient as it should be. The Nigerian Supreme Court is described as one of the most overworked and overburdened Supreme Courts in the world,” he said.
Osigwe stressed that cases of constitutional importance or those requiring resolution of conflicts in decisions by the Court of Appeal should be the only types of cases allowed to reach the apex court.
He argued that routine cases with settled legal principles should not burden the apex court.
“So instead of increasing the number, we should look at other options that may work. We must amend the Constitution to ensure that only cases that are raised and are of constitutional importance or where the Supreme Court needs to state the law and resolve conflicts by the Court of Appeal gets to the Supreme Court.
We cannot expect the Court to decide the large number of cases that come before them and expect them to be efficient and expect their consistency to be top-notch. Also, we have to ensure that the court is able to sit in two panels at all times, Osigwe added”.
Osigwe also called for improvements in the court’s operational processes, including the adoption of advanced case management technologies.
He stressed that without the changes, increasing the number of justices to 30 or even 50 would not resolve the inefficiencies.
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