Judicial Libraries as Predictors for Effective Administration of Justice in Nigeria

Authors

Emmanuel Owushi, University of Port Harcour, Port Harcourt, NigeriaFollow

Abstract

The study examined judicial libraries as predictors for effective administration of justice in Nigeria. The population involved all legal practitioners and legal educators in Nigeria. 4000 respondents were sampled. Due to unavailability of the population at the time of the study, the adopted convenience sampling technique to sample 4000 respondents across legal professional bodies in Nigeria. A structured questionnaire titled ‘Use of Judicial Library and Administration of Justice Scale’ was used for data collection. The questionnaire was structured with the 4-point Likert scale response style, designed on Google form and distributed to the respondents via various social media platforms. A total of 3084 questionnaire were responded to, indicating 77.1 percent response rate. The responses were collated using frequency and simple regression and mean score were used for analysis. The findings shows that the utilization of legal resources and legal information resources influence administration of justice at 4.1% and 5.1%, respectively. The influences are statistically significant. It was also discovered that limited budget, space constraints, accessibility issues, staffing issues, information overload, and copyright restrictions are some challenges facing judicial libraries. It was concluded that enhancing the capabilities of judicial libraries through effective management, proper funding, and technological integration is essential to ensure the continuous improvement of Nigeria's administration of justice. Among others, it was recommended that policymakers and relevant authorities should allocate more substantial funds to judicial libraries. Adequate budgetary provisions would facilitate the acquisition, maintenance, and update of legal resources, ensuring these libraries are well-equipped to support the legal fraternity.