Litigation Centre opens

Page 14: October 1, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia, back from Abuja, Nigeria.
THE President of the West African Bar Association (WABA), Mr Femi Falana, has challenged the judiciary in the sub-region to use local cases as authority instead of always referring to foreign cases.
He explained that the continued reference to foreign cases was a colonial legacy that excluded majority of the citizens from justice delivery, remote and unrelated to their peculiar needs.
Mr Falana was speaking at the launch of the West Africa Public Interest Litigation Centre (WAPILC) in Abuja, Nigeria at the weekend.
The centre, which is a special project of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), seeks to promote, support and initiate Public Interest Litigation (PIL) efforts aimed at holding public officials and private entities accountable for acting contrary to the public interest and reforming anti-democratic policies.
Its activities would cover national, sub-regional and regional courts and other judicatory fora and serve as a resource base for PIL cases in the sub-region.
Mr Falana made reference to a landmark ruling of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) versus the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) on the Public Order Act in 1992, which he used in a similar case between the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the IGP of Nigeria in 2006.
He said such cases fostered a good development for the sub-region especially in the legal field and that was certainly going to accelerate the integration process.
According to Mr Falana, the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mediation mechanism being presented as foreign initiative was indeed an African Dispute Resolution that was being used before the advent of the European judicial system.
A board member of OSIWA, Ms Ayo Obe, noted that public interest litigation would set the standard for citizens across the sub-region.
She admitted that best practices were found within the sub-region as they were found outside and, therefore, urged legal practitioners to send their cases and judicial decisions to the centre to be shared in the region.
The Chief Registrar of the ECOWAS Court, Mr Tony Anene-Maidoh, gave the assurance that the court would partner the WAPILC in its activities.
According him, such a partnership was essential because there could not be a rule of law without access to justice, adding that many ECOWAS nationals were not even aware of the existence of the court.
Mr Anene-Maidoh said unlike other regional courts, people could bring their cases to the ECOWAS court without going through their local or national courts.
The Executive Director of OSIWA, Dr Nana Tanko, said the setting up of the centre was to help improve the lives of West Africans through enhancing transparency in governance.
She explained that OSIWA initiated the setting up of the centre following requests for such a centre to fill the gap on PIL cases in the sub-region.