Justice Edward Asante, the President of the Community Court of Justice ECOWAS has said that the court would amend some of its rules and procedures to conform with international best practice.
Asante told newsmen on the sidelines of the 11th Judicial Retreat held in Nasarrawa state that “The retreat is about aligning our rules and procedures with international best practices, most of the rules we have in our court were set up when the court was only an inter-state court, only state could bring cases before the court.
“But after the amendment, when individuals and corporate bodies were given permission to appear before the court, the rules have not been amended and therefore we need to make sure we discussed and align them for amendment.
“At the end of the workshop we hope to come out with very good resolute decisions for them to be able to amend the rules,” he said.
He, however, said that the court was collaborating with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to have better rules and improve operation in the area of speedy delivery of Justice.
Asante added that one of the challenges the judges were facing was the short tenure compared to other international courts.
“The challenges are that the tenure is four years, by the time the judges settled is about six months gone, you can’t start cases, you can only do judgment, therefore effectively we work about three years.
“But when the tenure is about seven years like the most international and regional court, you have a very long time to build the jurisprudence of the court to make it very solid.
“Is the authority of the heads of state and the council of ministers who are in charge of this amendment, we have made recommendations to them, we hope to make more recommendations for them to know the need for them to do this, to make the court good for all of us,” he stated.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 11th Judicial Retreat is centred on case management system for efficiency in the court.
