Judiciary workers: Strike won’t be called off until demands are met

The Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) says the nationwide strike will not be called off until a concrete resolution is reached.

President Muhammadu Buhari had, in May 2020, granted financial autonomy to the legislature and judiciary across the 36 states of the country.

The order makes it mandatory for all states to include the allocations of both the legislature and the judiciary in the first-line charge of their budgets.

This gives powers to the accountant-general of the federation to deduct from source, amount due to the state legislatures and judiciaries from the monthly allocation to each state, for states that refuse to grant such autonomy.

However, governors are yet to carry out the implementation of this executive order.

Consequently, members of JUSUN commenced a nationwide strike on Tuesday.

In an interview with NAN on Thursday, Mariam Usuf-Gusau, legal adviser to JUSUN, insisted that the union will not step down on its action until its demands are met.

“The strike is still on while we await the outcome of the negotiation. We are not backing off until our demands are met. How can state high courts beg from governors for what is constitutionally theirs?” she queried.

Commenting on the strike, Sunday Adetola, an Abuja-based lawyer, also urged the government to implement the demands of the union.

“When the judiciary is strangulated through financial subjugation by the executive arm of government, the capacity to dispense wholesale justice without fear or favour is tragically impaired and dangerously undermined,” he said.

“On the debit side, denial of justice will always breed anarchy in the polity. This is the more reason why financial autonomy should be advanced to the highest heaven.

“Why is it so difficult for the executive arm of government to come to terms with the point that reducing the judiciary to a toothless bulldog will inevitably translate to more security spending and needless waste of human and material resources in dealing with the resultant anarchy/consequences of failure in the justice sector?”