Jurisdiction Of National Industrial Court Of Nigeria On Human Rights Enforcement: A Legislative Necessity Or Nimiety

Abstract

Human rights violation has become a matter of great concerns within the temple of administration of justice. The imperative need to expedite the process of adjudication of human rights infraction necessitated arrays of legislative reforms aimed at removing the attendant delays and clogs to pave way for quick and unhindered determination by courts. The reforms are particularly significant with respect to the expanded and expansive jurisdiction of National Industrial Court in the area of human rights infringement in work place. Though conceived to be in stark conflict with jurisdiction of Federal High Court and State High Court as vested by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) on questions of human rights enforcement, the reform of NIC’s jurisdiction propelled the contention as to whether it is a necessity or an overabundance. This conceptual analysis relied on both primary and secondary sources of data in the interrogation of the issues connected to the discourse. It found that the reform is welcomed as it widened access to justice in the stern realities of widespread human rights violation in work place in particular, which are now better handled by no other courts other than a specialized court like NIC. However, it is equally found that the fact that NIC would have to grapple with filtering its newly vested jurisdictional competence on human rights enforcement vis-à-vis the express provisions of the Constitution and the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules (2009) which had hitherto vested exclusive jurisdiction on Federal High Court and State High Court on fundamental rights enforcement tone down the gains to mere nimiety. The paper concluded by making series of proposal for reforming the applicable laws in order to strike a balance between these extremes-‘necessity and nimiety’ as it relates to the jurisdiction of NIC on questions of labour related human rights cases by virtue of lessons learnt from Uganda and South Africa.