Judges, lawyers hold forum for employment laws improvement

Members of the bar and bench on Friday held a no holds barred forum to proffer ways to improve labour laws in Nigeria

The forum which held at the National Industrial Court, as part of the activities to mark its 2022/2023 legal year, was in collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association-section on business law (NBA-SBL).

The NBA-SBL's Committee on Employment, Labour and Industrial Relations Committee (EIRC) anchored the inaugural Bar-Bench Forum of employment and labour law practitioners.

The forum which presented legal practitioners with the opportunity to interact with the judges of the NICN discussed issues connected to the decisions and activities of the court.

The president of NICN, Justice Benedict Kanyip in his goodwill message stated that the aim of the forum was to create an avenue for the bar and bench to interface.

He added that the forum would put to rest some misgivings and misunderstanding about what the NICN stands for in regards to jurisprudence.

During the forum, issues relating to policies of the court, areas where employment jurisprudence of common law had evolved, were discussed.

Questions bordering on Practice Directions of the NICN proceeding, 2022, specifically on its stipulation on striking out matters when documents are not properly marked, came up.

The practice it was argued was in contradiction with the Evidence Act.

Kanyip in response said that it was only applicable when it was a claimant that is in deficit.

Answers were equally given in areas such as sexual harassment in work place, unfair labour practice and whether or not an employer under investigation for gross misconduct can resign from his employment.

Earlier, the president of Industrial Court, Trinidad and Tobago, Mrs Deborah Thomas-Felix, advised that it was necessary for the court to engage the bar and other judicial stakeholders in order to be at par with current trends.

She added that NICN can emulate her court where law lecturers, ILO representatives are mandated to conduct researches to improve on labour laws.

Thomas-Felix further advised that forum where the bar, trade unions and court spend time analysing and not criticising issues in labour law to make things better, should be encouraged.

The chairman, NBA-SBL, Dr. Adeoye Adefulu, who joined the forum virtually, on his part said the focus of his association was to impact and influence and thereby through the forum, people will be educated on how NICN work and reasons behind some of its decisions.

Adefulu equally said they influence as practitioners, by lending voice to give environmental background context to decisions of NICN judges.

The chair of SBL-EIRC, Mr Ose Okpeku, reiterated that it was worrisome as some human resource personnel and legal practitioners were still stuck in applying labour common law.

He said these practitioners had the mentality of master- servant relation between an employer and employee who could hire and fire at will.