The governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has advocated the need for the judiciary to seek legal audacity that will accelerate cases before the Family Court even when prosecutors develop a cold feet over cases being handled.
Wike gave the advice yesterday when he formally inaugurated the Rivers State Family Court at the High Court complex in Port Harcourt.
The governor also unveiled the “Family Court Rules, the Guide,” and the book is titled “The Child, Ethics and the Law: A Simplified Law Guide for Children and Young Persons.”
He said often prosecutors clandestinely withdraw prosecution of child’s rights abuse cases, which frustrate the case, and justice to the child denied, eventually.
To forestall such situation, Wike urged the judiciary do everything possible to achieve the essence of establishing the Family Court, which is to engender a child friendly justice system that treat children with dignity and fairness.
The governor said, “As usual, nobody knows what may happen, but is there no way the legislature could say that in case the prosecutor is not coming for a case, the court, when I say the court, I am not talking about the presiding judge, but the judiciary, could on their own by funds available, hire another prosecutor(s) so that these cases do not die.”
He spoke of hindsight of experience of what often transpires and why prosecutors discontinue such cases of abuse of children.
Wike stated that children suffer a great deal of defilement at early age, but the lack of interest of prosecution to pursue such cases to logical conclusion serve as another form of injustice to children.
The governor said, “Children, they suffer, most of them are defiled at their early ages. Some people (lawyers) cannot stand firm to say that, look, I will not accept this, that I must prosecute the matter to the last to see that there is justice.”
He pledged his support to what the Family Court truly represents even if its establishment is coming about 13 years after the State Assembly first domesticated the Child’s Rights Act in 2009.
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