Edo Govt tracks court cases commissioned to private legal practitioners

The Edo State Government has set up a committee to track all its court cases commissioned to private legal practitioners.

the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Dr Samson Osagie, disclosed this during a chat with newsmen in Benin City.

Osagie said the move was to ensure that the state was not embarrassed with court judgements which it was not in a position to defend.

The committee is headed by Mrs Aigbavboa, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice.

The committee would track both civil and criminal cases, especially those that are outside the state.

The commissioner added that the purpose was for the government to understand the status and the nature of the cases.

“The state Ministry of Justice set up a committee to track all cases – both civil and criminal – that were commissioned or given out to private legal practitioners. The purpose was in order for us to understand their status and the nature of those matters.

“The committee which is headed by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Mrs Aigbavboa was necessitated by the recent experience of finding out that many cases involving the Edo State Government particularly outside the Edo State in courts in Abuja and others were being defended or prosecuted on the authority of the Ministry and without the Ministry now having feedback as to the progress or otherwise of those cases

“As a matter of fact, the most disturbing aspect of it all is that you find cases that are listed particularly outside the state and even some within Edo State having the Edo State government as a defendant without the state government being represented.

“An inquiry had shown that those cases were given out to private legal practitioners to defend and prosecute for Edo State.

“So we are disturbed because we don’t want to see judgements being given against the state without us being in a position to defend them or all that.

“So, ultimately we want this committee to quickly track these cases, establish the lawyer (s) to whom they were given, understand the cause and status of those cases, require feedback from those lawyers as status reports so that the Ministry will be able to track them.

“Those that are being diligently prosecuted by those lawyers we may still allow them but those that are not being prosecuted at all, and that have been abandoned, we will not like the government to be embarrassed by court judgements, we will retrieve them and reassign them to either state counsel or to other private legal practitioners,” he said.