Covid-19 and African Nations: An Overview of the Legal and Infrastructural Challenges to remote Court Proceedings

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Date

2020

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State

Abstract

Prior to the outbreak of the global health emergency caused by the Corona Virus Pandemic, the Administration of Justice in Africa was in deep trouble. Infrastructure inadequacies, dilapidated facilities, corruption, backlog of cases, lack of judicial independence, lack of judicial courage, poor budgetary allocations and lack of information technology (IT) skills have slowed down the justice delivery system. Overcoming these problems was almost becoming a mirage. Then comes the Corona Virus pandemic which practically locked down access to justice in almost all the African countries except very urgent matters. These matters remained largely undefined and left to the whims and caprice of the heads of courts. There have been efforts to design a sustainable global solution to the lack of access to justice triggered by this pandemic. Central to these efforts is the decision of some African countries to adopt the virtual or remote court proceedings method in order to dispose of their pending cases and arbitral matters. However, inconsistencies in the legal framework, dilapidated as well as inadequate infrastructure such as power, internet facilities and other necessary Information technology equipment in some courts in African are bound to hinder the legal and judicial institutions’ efforts at using remote method to conduct court’s proceedings. Therefore, provision of constant power supply, training of judiciary staff on how to deploy information technology (IT) for the use of the courts, upgrading and improving the courts’ infrastructural facilities are some of the ways to improve legal and judicial practices across Africa.

Description

Keywords

Access to Justice; Corona Virus Pandemic; Infrastructure Development; Virtual Court Proceedings; Nigeria; Africa

Citation

OAULJ Vol. 4. No.1 124-136

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