 As you can imagine, after that occasion I have not had the pleasure of wearing my wig again and I have only grained now so much that I'm not even so sure that I need a wig if I do show up again at the Supreme Court. I'm extremely grateful to the firm of Wale Ollani Baikon, convener of this important conversation on our system of administration of justice, on this very kind invitation. Chief Wale Ollani Baikon is without doubt one of the most consequential lawyers in not only in our country but perhaps even in the common world. Today his exceptional success with novel constitutional constructs is swiftly becoming the staff of legend. But this day he is doing his best and I want him to listen to this very well. This day he is doing his best to enjoy the very huge fruits of his labour and has sensibly handed over the tougher parts of running the law firm to his two exceptionally brilliant chiefs of the old block, Dr. Ollani Baikon, senior advocate of Nigeria and Mr. Ollani Baikon, senior advocate of Nigeria. I commend you both for this exceptional idea and the execution of this summit. This theme covers a very broad range and I am just after listening to Odita covering the wide range of issues and with such incredibly appropriate examples and illustrations, one really would rather not say anything, would just go straight to the discussions so that we can make our contributions. So what I will try to do is to focus my comments on the responsiveness of our system of administration of justice to the ends of social justice, or the social ends that is to say. I just mentioned a thing or two about some of the other structural issues at the end of my presentation. We are at a moment in history like no other. A global pandemic of a magnitude probably never seen before and the worst global economic decline in the century. Economies like politics is here in Nigeria who are already grappling with issues of poverty, entrenched in quality, disparities in access to social and economic opportunities, constraints to access to justice. And I think as Fidel said, not just access to justice, but perhaps more importantly, exiting justice, the justice system. And the diminishing faith in governing institutions generally, at the same time in security in parts of the country, stretching our law enforcement infrastructure to its very limits. But we're also at the most technologically advanced moment in human history. And this is the same for us in Nigeria, with artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and now even 5G, redefining commerce, medicine, entertainment, and even how we work and play. The conflation of these events is both enormously, my view, exacerbating, but it's also incredibly hopeful time. And for our system of justice, it offers great opportunities and we must not, we must not in any way diminish those opportunities that it offers. But we are faced today with demands for both structural and philosophical change in the administration of justice system. And I cannot, I can't but help repeating how well Fidel has put a lot of these issues. But the big question is also the relevance of our paradigms of justice to the major socioeconomic circumstances that confront us. The law is a social construct that makes sense only within a social context. To treat the law as something apart from society or as a body of technical abstractions is to strip it of meaning and to alienate the legal order from the very people that it is meant to serve. Consequently, a definition of justice that focuses on social and economic rights of the people is not only meaningful, it is certainly more just. Of course these rights, as we know, include the right to shelter, food, employment, education, a reasonable standard of living, national, a national living wage, a national minimum wage, care for the elderly, pensions, unemployment benefits and the welfare of the physically challenged. Our progress in the observance of socioeconomic rights must also be prosecuted in terms of the struggle to reduce the basic problems of ill health, malnutrition, illiteracy, farming, etc., which daily afflict our people. Where social and economic rights are unsecured, people are enabled to fully maximise the civil and political rights. So for instance, access to qualitative education, enhances and enriches freedoms of expression, thought and culture. Conversely, pervasive illiteracy can nullify the entire idea of freedom of expression. In the progressive vision, political rights and socioeconomic rights are mutually reinforcing. But socioeconomic rights, even where they are wholly justiciable, mean nothing unless there is a physical commitment to enforcement. And so this is crucial because it's a crucial, in my view, intersection of politics, of ideology and of notions of justice. And this may explain why the opposition in Nigeria was prepared to abolish a social investment programme if they were. While our party's understanding of the imperative of delivering social justice was a provision of a massive social safety net, or at least the beginnings of the provision of a massive social safety net, there was a fundamental feature of the party's manifesto. So our social investment programme, which is possibly one of the most ambitious welfare programmes on the continent, and our effort to expand universal health insurance, all aim at ensuring that our most vulnerable citizens are not abandoned to the existence of fate. Consequently, socioeconomic rights, where they find fiscal support, is absolutely crucial. And if they do not find fiscal support, obviously, the whole cause is lost. It's of course evident that without social justice, legal justice, in any sense, is unattainable. The degree to which citizens are in possession of their socioeconomic rights also has a direct impact on the degree of their access to legal services and bends to justice. Our constitution asserts that the independence, impartiality and integrity of the courts of law, and easy accessibility there too, shall be secured and mended. It's significant that the framers of the constitution enshrined access to justice along with socioeconomic rights in the directive principles and objectives of state policy. But this indicates clearly that they saw access to justice and the integrity of our justice system and socioeconomic rights as related imperatives. And I think that that's the right construct, that's the right framework. There's also a growing recognition, especially in criminal justice, that the model of adjudication that we are accustomed to, which largely dispenses retributive justice, is not entirely adequate to meet the demands of justice in the various complex scenarios and situations that confront a developing country such as ours. Given the tensions and frictions generated by contending passions and grievances and the social reality of inequality and inequity, there's also a recognition that some of the most serious situations, which threaten to even sometimes, you know, break the fabric of society, require much more than just retributive sanctions by judicial system. They require restorative justice to bring about healing and the reconstruction of communities. This is one of the approaches that we're looking at as part of our efforts to resolve protracted ethnic and religious conflicts. In many, many cases, it's not enough to arrest, detain and then prosecute a terrorist or jail someone who has abducted children for years. There is a need somehow to find a process by which restorative justice can be brought to there, by which the communities can feel somehow, by which their feelings of violation can be assuaged. Already, the National Policy on Justice embodies some of these prescriptions and offers pathways of innovation for more holistic approaches to justice delivery. There's still much work, of course, to be done in this respect. But just to mention as I close, just a few of the issues which I've described as infrastructural issues. How do we ensure that we attract an appointment to be the best amongst us to the bench? What can we do about unreasonable delays in justice delivery? How will technology affect our institution of justice system? What needs to be done to maintain the integrity of our judicial processes and outcomes? To take the easiest first, and I'm not going to make any elaborate comment as I said, I endorse fully practically everything that Mr. Davis said. There's little doubt that technology has already permanently changed the way we do business. It's been caused in the wake of the pandemic and those virtual court proceedings. So I'm incurring there, at least the doors have been opened for whatever the implications of virtual court proceedings mean. Digitization of trial processes is now inevitable, and they are very many easy to use models. This will by itself, in my view, impact trial times. Recording proceedings will be easier and so will several other things. And I agree with Fidel is that sometimes technology might be slower than manual processes, especially because we haven't got the technology right. But I think that with more frequent use and with states like Lakers, we'll probably get it right much faster. We've been at this issue of digitization for quite a few years now, but I think that it is getting much easier to adopt some of the best models that there are. But the important correlation between the cost regime and the speed and efficiency of trials, again, is a very crucial issue. We cannot have the cost regime we have today and expect that lawyers will not engage in dietary tactics, especially where the lawyer knows he has no case. So really, again, I fully endorse what Fidel has said in his presentation about how the cost regime should influence the way that trials run, and also how dietary tactics are punished by the sorts of costs that have to be paid by counsel that engage in such content. We must take the opportunity also to rewrite procedures to remove needless processes and rituals. And I think, again, to the point that Fidel has made, this entire approach of just a completely technical way, it has given rise to the most absurd outcomes, the obsessive, and I think that that's what the elevation of form over substance. This is obviously a matter that we must take seriously, and it's a matter that we must address, not just as professionals, but we must involve all the arms of government. I have the privilege of speaking at a webinar on appointment of judges, I think, about two weeks ago. And this matter also came up. I think it's important for us to sit together, that is to say, the leadership of the legal profession, the executive judiciary, and the legislature, to take a second look at some of these issues. What's the point of the whole, if you look at judgments, as you said, some of the judgments where there's just been an unnecessary emphasis on technical outcomes, where in fact the entire justice of the case is just ridiculous. I think when a case is decided right, when justice is done, practically everybody feels that justice has been done. And it's not a very difficult thing to achieve at all. And I think that every time that technicality is raised over the justice of the case, it just leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and everybody does feel that something has been violated. So it shouldn't be a very difficult thing at all to get the justices of the Supreme Court and a lot of our justices to understand what needs to be done and to do what is required. On judicial appointments, it's clear that a merit-based system is absolutely necessary. We need to insist on mandatory tests and interviews for all applicants. And I'm sure that this matter will be addressed in detail by, I know we have someone from the UK, the judicial appointments, who will be looking at the system in the UK. But clearly, we need to look more carefully at how our judges are selected. And there has to be an objective process of selecting justices. And we cannot insist that the only way to become a judge is to be a career person or at least to move from high court to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. We must be able to bring in practicing lawyers, we must be able to bring in academics to be justices of the Court of Appeal, to be justices of the Supreme Court. And if it requires writing the rules, then let us rewrite the rules, so that this can be made possible. I think that the point which has been made again by Fidelis about the fact that we're not going to get angels to reform our system is what we've done by ourselves. And I think we in the legal profession, even if only for self-preservation, even if only to preserve our own profession and our means of livelihood, if we have no higher, if we have no higher objectives, we throw it to ourselves to change all of what we see. And it means engaging with the Supreme Court, it means engaging with the government, with the executives, with the legislature, to change some of these rules. And I think the case is very clear and evident that change is necessary. And that the reform of our judicial system is urgent. Every minute of delay simply worsens the bleeding. So just to say thank you again for the very kind invitation and for this opportunity, and I am looking forward to some of the discussions as we go. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Your Excellency. It's always a pleasure to hear from you.