The Nigerian judiciary must embrace technology and innovation for the evolution of the profession and national development, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has said.
Osinbajo said this in a pre-recorded speech on Monday as guest speaker at the 2021 Annual Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Lagos Branch, themed ‘Disruption, Innovation and The Bar.’
He said the judiciary must ensure that the country’s justice delivery mechanism is run on a system of enforceable, discernible laws and efficient institutions.
He said innovation in the country’s legal profession requires urgency in both thought and action, especially in a world which currently thrives on knowledge economy, and where some jobs, including legal jobs, are being threatened by digitization and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Citing the example of how continuous improvement in the quality of smartphone cameras disrupted global sales of digital camera, the Vice President said artificial intelligence “is commonly used to perform tasks such as legal research and due diligence, document and contract review, and the prediction of legal outcomes – these are tasks that would have been performed by lawyers.”
“With the continuing progress in technology, it is only a matter of time before the time capsule catches up with us in Nigeria,” he stated while calling for continuous improvement in the institutional capacity of judges, court registries, court staff, and court infrastructure.
“As digitalisation has already disrupted other industries, it is possible to predict that AI will go further and disrupt the business model of the legal industry.
“For example, the AI legal service called ROSS is an AI system that can research and offer legal opinions about questions that may be posed by lawyers. And ROSS is then able to provide an answer; a properly considered legal opinion, taking into account the case laws and statutory authority in order to be able to come to that conclusion… So, providing predictive legal opinion is no longer the exclusive domain of lawyers, and as the years go by, it will become even more so.
“We are part of the global marketplace for investment and legal services. So, the extent to which we can attract business to our country depends in part upon investor perception of the quality of our justice delivery system. If we are seen as inefficient and ineffective, we would lose out to more efficient systems,” he said.
Speaking on the delay in justice delivery process, Osinbajo said the country’s judiciary ought to find ways to tackle jurisdictional challenges, particularly delays in court judgments, among others.
“I argued an appeal at the Court of Appeal in 2013, only to learn yesterday as I discussed with former colleagues in the law firm where I worked, that the appeal at the Supreme Court is not even listed to be heard in 2021. As someone said; our problem is not access to justice, it is exiting the justice system with some credible result.
“Should we not be evolving a cost award system that recognizes the court as a finite public resource, and as such delays and other dilatory tactics are visited with deterrent costs?
“For example, our jurisprudence on jurisdiction – does it promote legal certainty or help to cloud the issues even further? Have jurisdictional challenges become a potent weapon that strike blindly in all directions? What is the quality of judicial thinking, is it a mere recourse to formulas, catchphrases, and clichés instead of a rigorous analysis of legislative intent and public interest adding some common sense? Are procedural and adjectival rules a bane or tool for justice and speed?
“How does a system explain to society that the current rule established by our apex court is that the signature of a law firm instead of that of an individual legal practitioner on a court process could negate or extinguish the substance of the rights of individuals and commercial parties to justice in a decade’s old case or even in a case that is much older? Or how does justice delayed at the convenience of legal practitioners or the benefit of litigants become justice attained?
“Change is happening quickly all around us in every sphere of life. A sentimental clutching on to traditions will not serve us well. We have seen already that there is nothing sacrosanct about proceedings taking place in physical courtrooms. Virtual hearings are efficient and speedy,” he said.
The Vice President commended Lagos and other states that have embraced innovation and issued practice directions that permitted virtual proceedings during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown “in line with the commitment the Chief Justice of Nigeria made recently to a full-scale digital revolution in the judiciary that would guarantee electronic filing of court processes, virtual hearings and delivery of judgments.”
The Vice President said there was the need for the judiciary to engage in new markets as presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area.
“Questions also need be asked about the readiness of our profession to engage in new markets as presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area. Already Nigerian banks and financial services are crossing borders in Africa, acquiring banks in several African countries.
“So, the AfCTA will open new trans-border commercial opportunities, and our profession should pay attention to the rules of engagement for legal services and how they may propel our business,” he said.
