The federation of International female lawyers (FIDA) has pledged to support the newly appointed acting chief judge of Adamawa State, Justice Hapsat Abdulrahman in order to strengthen the justice sector in the state.
Chairperson of Adamawa State chapter of FIDA, Hapsat Abdullahi made the pledge when officials and members of the federation paid a courtesy call on the acting chief judge.
She expressed optimism that Justice Hapsat Abdulrahman will bring new innovations and positive developments to the justice sector considering her track record and wealth of experience, expressing hope that the judiciary is going to witness rapid changes.
Hapsat who noted that the acting CJ was a woman of many firsts urged her to strengthen the judiciary through training and retraining of judges and to ensure all mechanisms put in place to ensure timely delivery of SGBV cases are strengthened.
“So we have been looking at this acting CJ to make sure all the designated courts are doing their work and we should be working with her closely to be monitoring the court and to be gathering data in terms of how many cases are before the court, how far has the judge gone, how many cases were arrainged, convicted and to make sure any conviction that was given the person actually serve the term.
“Another thing is for the CJ to be having training for her judges not only the higher court judges but the magistrates. Some of them are new on board they need to be trained and retrained again and again to effectively discharge their duties as judges or magistrates. We will also be collaborating with the office of ag CJ to ensure that our cases in FIDA are heard as at when due and the necessary attention is given to them,” she said.
Abdullahi noted that so far FIDA in conjunction with stakeholders has ensured the coming of four high courts in Yola, Ganye, Mubi and Gombi for the trial of SGVB cases noting that FIDA is also working to strengthen plea bargain to ensure prison decongestion.
“Actually FIDA has been doing wonderfully well but as organization we need support from other partners. During my time, the first thing we did was to make sure that we had a robust and cordial relationship with all our partners and stakeholders, the judiciary, the ministry of justice, the police, the civil defense, DSS, the CSOs and even the general public.
“During our time we worked closely with the government in seeing that we put mechanisms in place to ensure the passage of VAPP law, FIDA was 100 percent behind the passage of that law.
“We worked closely with the office of the women affairs with the office of commissioner of justice and all other partners Muslims council, CAN and even the judiciary. Secondly, even the designation of the court it was FIDA who paid an advocacy and requested the CJ to do that which she graciously did including the designation of juvenile courts.
“Even practice direction for adjudication of SGBV was initiated by FIDA practice direction for handling child offender, FIDA was part of it, practice direction for protection orders so these are initiatives by FIDA. We are beginning to see the impact of these initiatives,” she said.
Thanking FIDA for their stance in the promotion of the justice sector, the acting CJ pledged to do everything within her powers to sustain a robust relationship with FIDA being a key stakeholder in the justice sector.
She called on them to monitor the activities of her office and give appropriate advice and offer constructive criticism when necessary.
She promised to look into some of the issues raised by the FIDA which are geared towards the enhancement of the justice sector.
