In this article, Chinaza Duke Nwosu ESQ, Ch. Reg. argues for the abolishment of fresh hearings in trials begun de novo.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic brought along with it a wave of transition in all of the world’s institutions and economies. These changes have hitherto been called for. However, the surge of the pandemic brought with it an imperativeness for the world to reconsider its conservativeness on these yearnings. One of such is the increased use of technology in legal systems, which for some countries of the world, had been a norm. For Nigeria, given the ostensible insistence on analogue systems, players and stakeholders had to fully reconsider the situation, and because the pandemic tended to put the world to a stop, and the legal system had to find a way to go on, the system had to apply the use of technology in a more drastic way. Till date, the Nigerian Legal System (NLS), having learnt a thing or two, have consistently driven itself towards ensuring a continuous growth alongside the dynamism (in terms of technology) of the society it tends to govern. This work tends to bring to fore a practice of justice delivery in the NLS that yields the greatest injustice and inhumanity on litigants; the practice of fresh hearing in trial de novo. The writer is able to demonstrate the unjust hardship occasioned on litigants on the strength of this practice, and the writer posits that such hardships could be avoided by the application of audiovisual technology. This work employs the analytical and doctrinal methods of research, and alludes to primary and secondary sources of law, in its submissions.
