The Chief Judge of Oyo State, Justice Munta Abimbola, says the state has no infrastructure in place for virtual court proceedings.
Abimbola disclosed this on Sunday in Ibadan while speaking on the effect of COVID-19 on the state judiciary in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He spoke on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Family Court in Ibadan.
Abimbola said COVID-19 pandemic had affected the conduct of court proceedings.”It is not possible to conduct virtual court proceedings because there is no any infrastructure on ground that is ICT compliance.”
We don’t have any infrastructure that will make virtual court proceedings possible, but we make use of other procedures so as to open the court during this COVID-19 period,” he said.
Abimbola said the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic had compelled the court to restrict the number of people coming into the courtroom for the safety of not only the court users, but also the court adjudicators.
”What we did was to leave the court open during the COVID-19 lockdown and some judges, including myself, were sitting and giving different time for parties to appear in court.”
Lawyers were informed to come with very limited number of parties involved in a matter.”
Matters that are very urgent such as motions, enforcement of fundamental human rights cases and bail of custody application were given attention during this period,” Abimbola said.
The Nation