AKURE – Justice Olasehinde Kumuyi, Ondo State Chief Judge, has called on legal practitioners in the state to be modest in their profession.
Kumuyi made the call on Monday in Akure during the 2014/2015 legal year celebration.
He admonished that lawyers should be seen in the public as opinion moulders.
“Demonstration on the street before the same people who rate them as very learned in almost everything is to say the least, most disappointing.
“Lawyers are equipped with the civilised capacity to use the court system in correcting any policy without personalising administrative matters through frivolous petitions and mudslinging,’’ Kumuyi said.
The chief judge said that the state judiciary would continue to make policy for prison decongestion.
“The prison decongestion and review of the criminal justice sector remains a focal point of our reform,’’ he said.
According to Kumuyi, there are continuous visits to the prisons across the state to give a breath of freedom to those deserving and to implement policies that remove clog in the wheel of the justice system.
He said that plans and progressions of the judiciary had been largely hampered by paucity of funds which had become a national challenge.
Kumuyi said that in spite the success, 2013/2014 legal year ended on a rather unfortunate note because lawyers in Nigeria engaged in some violence.
“For the first time, lawyers in Nigeria engaged in a near violent protest against some policies which they felt were adverse to their interests,’’ he said.
In his speech, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice urged the citizens to use the new legal year to leave the negative past behind in order to shape a new and better future for the country.
“We as citizens of this great country should direct our energy and ideas to promote and strengthen the system.
“Also to solve the problems, shape our future, reduce conflicts, and evolve a less destructive way of agitation,’’ Jegede said. (NAN)