PRESENTATION ON THE FINDINGS OF THE COURT OBSERVATION, COURT USER SATISFACTION, USER SURVEY AND CASE MONITORING QUATER 3

The Judicial Integrity Project is an 8-month project being implemented by the Rule of Law and Empowerment Initiative (also known as Partners West Africa – Nigeria) *with support from the US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).  Partners West Africa – Nigeria, worked closely with the Nigeria Bar Association Abuja and Kano branches, FCT and Kano State Judiciary, Sharia, Federal High & Industrial Courts Kano.

The major objective of this project is to increase civil society’s access to government information as a tool to fight judicial corruption, increase citizens’ access to justice and expand citizens’ engagement with the government. We realize that this can only be achieved by increasing the capacity of civil society to access information on judicial process. This we have aimed to achieve by promoting social accountability in the judicial sector.

The courts that were observed sat 70% of the time in Abuja and Kano. The Upper Sharia Courts in Kano sat 90% of the time while FCT High Courts sat 73%. A comparism of the three quarters shows increase in court sittings at the FCT Magistrate Courts (13%), Sharia Courts (8%) and Upper Sharia Courts of Appeal (8%) in Kano.