Concerned group writes JESUN over judicial workers’ strike

   DigitalSENS E Business News

A group known as Access to Justice [A2Justice] has appealed to the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) to call off the strike action it embarked on since January 5, DigitalSENSE Business News reports

In a letter to JUSUN, DigitalSENSE Business News  further gathered, the civil rights group noted that while the union reserves the right to embark upon a nationwide strike action to enforce compliance and implementation of the judgement it won declaring that the Judiciary was entitled to exercise financial autonomy over its budget, Access to Justice appealed to JUSUN to consider calling off the strike action at this time as the impact of the strike is becoming excruciating.

According to the Civil rights group   “We do this for two principal reasons: first, the impact of the strike has been massive, and has had the most disproportionate effect on persons who are mostly “outsiders”  to the policy making circuit and who exercise little or no influence over policy makers who alone can address the grievances being expressed by JUSUN in the sustained strike", DigitalSENSE Business News was informed.

"Second", the letter continued, "there will be considerable changes to the composition of the executive branch in a significant number of States where the strike is taking place soon. Newly elected Governors will be sworn into office in some of these States on May 29 2015, which is barely a month from this time. This is the situation in States like Kaduna, Enugu, Plateau, Taraba and Nasarawa States, among others".

The incoming administrations, DigitaSENSE Business News learnt, could pursue a different policy from those being currently applied by the current group of incumbencies, and could very well differ on policies relating to compliance with the Justice Ademola Judgment. But coming into office and meeting a pre-existing and ongoing strike action that has effectively crippled the operations of a vital branch of government will not represent a healthy inheritance, nor a good start to the business of governance.

Given all this, A2Justice implores on JUSUN to end this strike now, and re-open locked court houses for business. "We urge JUSUN to be responsive to the distress the strike action has caused to indigent, vulnerable people and to remember that many Nigerians support the fight for a truly independent Judiciary, and so, support JUSUN’s efforts to bring about this", the letter concluded.

Cyriacus Nnaji/ ED,OPs

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