By Beatrice Gondyi
Bauchi State Chief Judge, Justice Rabi Talatu Umar has expressed satisfaction with the judges in Misau, Katagum, Jama’are and Ningi where she reviewed cases of persons awaiting trial at the custodial centres in the four emirate councils of the state.

Umar said the judges are handling their cases effectively and the disposal is quite encouraging, having observed that only a few awaiting trials are at the correctional centres where she visited Wednesday, indicating timely disposal of cases.

Justice Rabi Talatu Umar who was at the head of a committee on criminal justice however noticed that some cases that are civil in nature are being handled as criminals, such as the case of when someone is owing to another party and the person aggrieved to take the matter to court.

“Instead of the judge to handle the matter in a civil manner, he would detain the debtor in prison. I have always warned judges against doing that because there is no way for somebody who is indebted to a plaintiff would get the money to pay back while he was in custodial custody”.

According to her, there are ways and means by which one can recover such monies from the debtor because the procedure is a quite explicit and better way of recovering money in a civil matter, “but when you won’t take the person to court and you want him detained and you want your money back, is practically impossible”.

The Chief Judge, therefore, advised judges particularly sharia court judges to refrain from doing the impossible, saying ‘you detained a person and you want your money back from him, how could he work out to give back the money.

Rabi also told the judges that it is difficult to establish whether somebody is a witch or not because, as she puts it, ‘As far as I am concern, it takes a witch to identify a witch if you not a witch how can you identify a witch’.

She added, “But sometimes the people confess that they are witches, but somebody who denied being a witch, how would you establish that in a court of law, so it’s a technical thing, and I have always asked them to use wisdom in handling cases like that”.

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The Bauchi Chief similarly warned judges not to allow people to put arbitrary monies on compensation as was the case in one of the sharia court where an aggrieved person is seeking compensation of N60, 000 from someone who bites his finger.

On the complaint of judges that they are were not being exposed to workshops to update their knowledge, the chief judge assured them of looking into the issue with a view to organizing workshops that would broaden their horizon.

During the cases review exercise of awaiting trial persons at the custodial centres, the chief judge released ten persons thus, five at Ningi Correctional centres, three at Misau and one each at Azare and Jama’are.