The Chief Executive Officer of HiiL, Sam Muller of The Hague Institute for Innovative Law (HiiL) has bemoaned the declining place of rule of law and justice in Nigeria and other parts of the world.

The Chief Executive Officer of HiiL, Sam Muller disclosed this on Thursday during the presentation of the 2023 report of the justice needs and satisfaction in Nigeria.

Muller said the situation, which was also captured by the World Justice Project’s 2023 report, and which impacts on six out of eight billion people in the world, is depressing for people who wake up everyday to build a nation where peace and justice shall reign.

He, however, observed that change has started in the last five years with a movement towards people-centred justice.

He said a taskforce consisting of leaders from different regions of the world, which made a thorough analysis of the situation and found that the cost on the economy and development can be measured.

“Two-third of people on planet earth do not have adequate access to justice, and somehow it is not getting better and we keep doing the same thing to improve,” he said.

In her presentation, the Country Representative (Nigeria) of HiiL, Ijeoma Nwafor said the organisation has justice acceleration programme, scaling programme and innovation labs in Imo, Kaduna and Ogun states.

Also making a presentation, the Programme Director of Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda, Theresa Smout said findings from the research done in Imo, Kaduna and Ogun indicate that Nigeria has attained the level of outcomes, solutions and impact in achieving the aim of using innovations to close the justice gap.

She said Nigeria is followed by Ethiopia as the countries in this level in Africa.

A representative of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Felix Okojie expressed satisfaction with the result of the research from three states and reiterated the ministry’s commitment to partner with HiiL to replicate the findings of the research nationwide.The data show that 81 percent of Nigerians encountered a legal problem in 2023, one-third said the

cases are still ongoing, while 82 percent of them considered the resolution fair or very fair.

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