By Adenike Lawal<\/p>\n
The House of Representatives has moved forward with a Bill to amend the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja Act, proposing an increase in the number of judges in the FCT High Court.<\/p>\n
The Bill, which passed its second reading on Thursday, aims to address the growing workload of the court.<\/p>\n
Co-sponsored by Deputy Speaker Hon. Benjamin Kalu (APC, Abia), Hon. Babajimi Benson (APC, Lagos), and six other lawmakers, the Bill was debated during Thursday\u2019s plenary.<\/p>\n
Hon. Jonathan Gbefwi (SDP, Nasarawa), one of the Bill’s co-sponsors, stressed that the amendment is crucial to improving judicial efficiency.<\/p>\n
He highlighted that the current limit of 70 judges is insufficient for the court\u2019s workload, which includes handling national cases and serving Abuja residents.<\/p>\n
With 12,513 pending cases from the previous year and 5,952 new cases filed in 2022\/2023 alone, the court is under immense pressure.<\/p>\n
The proposed increase to 100 judges would significantly ease the strain on the court, improving case resolution times and boosting public confidence in the judiciary.<\/p>\n
Gbefwi noted that the court\u2019s current capacity is inadequate given Abuja\u2019s expanding population and economic development.<\/p>\n
The amendment seeks to modify Section 1 of the existing Act, allowing for a minimum of 100 judges, a necessary step to meet both present and future demands.<\/p>\n
This move reflects a proactive approach to addressing the challenges facing Nigeria\u2019s judiciary and ensuring timely justice for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Adenike Lawal The House of Representatives has moved forward with a Bill to amend the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja Act, proposing an increase in the number of judges in the FCT High Court. The Bill, which passed its second reading on Thursday, aims to address the growing workload of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":56648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-56647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56649,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56647\/revisions\/56649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}