Imo State Governmnet has promised to work with the Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law (HiiL) to dismantle all obstacles preventing people from easily and affordably accessing justice.
Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma made this promise while speaking at the occasion of Imo justice transformation launch on Thursday, October 15, at the Imo Concorde Hotel, Owerri.
He expressed gratitude to HiiL volunteers for their sacrificial leadership, while thanking leadership of institute for choosing Imo as a the first stop in Nigeria for the justice transformation lab process, which he said is a call for action to pursue the goals and hit the target mapped out.
He charged the Attorney General of the state and the ministry of justice to constitute a committee to achieve the goals and ensure that the average person in the state, especially at the rural areas, find justice accessible, affordable and easy to navigate.
Declaring the event open, the governor said, “For the hope of increased access to justice for the people of Imo State, I want to, to the glory of God and service to humanity, declare this occasion of justice transformation launch open”.
In his address at the occasion, the Attorney General and Conmissioner for Justice, Imo State, C.O.C Akaolisa described the programme as people oriented, pointing out that it normally happens at the federal government level. He appreciated HiiL for bringing it down to Imo State and closer to the grassroots.
“When the HiiL country rep, Ijeoma Nwafor approached me on July about the justice transformation lab coming to Imo, I immediately jumped at it because it is in line with the agenda of His Excellency, Senator Hope Uzodimma’s government of shared prosperity”.
Earlier in his address, the Nigerian country representative of HiiL, Ijeoma Nwafor introduced the institute as a special enterprise, based in the Netherlands and focuses on what she termed, ‘user friendly justice’, using people centred and evidence based approach.
She said the goal of the institute was to ensure that by the year 2030, over 150 million people are able to resolve their most pressing justice problems.
She explained what justice transformation lab does to include; Take a systemic, collaborative and experimental approach to justice, combining evidence based and stakeholders driven approaches.
.Justice transformation predicated on the belief that a diverse group of justice stakeholders in a given country is best suited to develop and implement a justice transformation strategy which incorporates data and promotes innovations to solve citizens’ legal problems.
