A legal practitioner and research professional, Prof. Teddy Idiabeta, has called for the adoption of criminal mediation in simple offences to reduce the duration of court cases.
Idiabeta, founder of Prof. Teddy Idiabeta Law Consult in Delta, made the call during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) via Zoom on Friday in Lagos.
He said that criminal mediation is achievable and lawyers should introduce it during the course of a matter.
On corruption in the legal system, Idiabeta said: “I hope to see a system where lawyers will stand for truth and promote what I call, ‘lawyering evangelism’ in promoting justice.
“Creative lawyering, where lawyers will be pragmatic in their approach, investigative lawyering like what we have as investigative journalism.
“I believe, lawyers are underutilised in our potentials in the field, there are so much that we can gain.
“There are criminal cases that should not drag in court unnecessarily; but a party is trying to manipulate the system to get justice, mediation can be introduced by the lawyer to settle out of court”.
The legal practitioner further said that Lagos is a very busy state for lawyers to develop themselves because they spent the whole day on the road and do not have time to study.
He said that in other states, lawyers have ample time to utilise potential and develop themselves. (NAN)
