The Supreme Court, on Friday, ruled that it is not the responsibility of the Nigerian government to provide funding for state judiciaries.
This is even as the court dismissed a suit filed by the Attorney-Generals of the 36 states of the federation which argued that the federal government’s responsibility is to fund capital and recurrent expenditures of state high courts, Sharia court of appeal and customary court of appeal.
But the Supreme Court in its split-decision of four justices against three held that the responsibility of funding state courts lies squarely with the state governments.
In the lead judgement prepared by Musa Dattijo, but read by Centus Nweze, the Supreme Court held that Presidential Executive Order 10 issued in 2020 to shore up the financial independence of state judiciaries and legislatures is “unconstitutional”.
