Law Digest Spring 2015
Practice and Procedure – Folabi Kuti – Perchstone & Graeys
The proposed National Industrial Court of Nigeria (Civil Procedure) Rules 2015 A perspective -Folabi Kuti – Partner Perchstone & Graeys
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itting to the exclusion of all courts in the resolution of employment, labour and industrial relations disputes, and, arguably a court of last resort on almost all the items it exercises jurisdiction on, the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) is about to introduce a new set of procedural rules, tow with the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (Civil Procedure) Rules 2015. Jurisprudence of the Rules Much like the overriding objective under the rules of courts modelled after the Woolf ’s Report – and which in turn inspired the
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English (Civil Procedure) Rules (CPR), the underlying objectives of the proposed Rules appears intended to further define the culture within which litigation will be conducted. To be sure, the main changes envisaged are in the areas of fast-track case management of all civil matters before the court, greater encouragement of settlement and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes, proactive judicial management of litigation timetables (and resources) with respect to the hearing of interlocutory applications, checkmating dilatory tactics by practitioners and so on. It is in light of the foregoing that a few of its
novel provisions are highlighted to see how the proposed Rules are poised at transforming a fundamentally different landscape of civil litigation at the National Industrial Court. Suffice to say that, as with every other human activity, given to some margin of errors, a few pitfalls are also identified. Frontloading system: explicit on details Comparatively, the provisions of the proposed Rules are more explicit on details with respect to the frontloaded processes, contents of the accompanying forms and documents, timescales for delivering the