Multi-Door Court to settle over 200 cases

In line with its pilot district settlement week billed to start tomorrow, the Lagos State Multi-Door Court (LMDC) has said it would resolve about 200 cases from the Igbosere Magistrate’s Court.

The week-long exercise is geared towards decongesting the courts by using Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism to solve issues emanating from contract disputes, debt recovery, property, tenancy, defamation as well as family matters.

With 10 cases billed to be resolved per day, the LMDC Director, Mrs. Caroline Etuk, said seasoned mediators had been selected and lined up.

“The exercise is aimed at bringing ADR to the grassroots as well as giving participants opportunity to explore settlement of their disputes by the intervention of skilled mediators.

“The parties are not deprived of their day in court. In the event of a non-settlement, the matter is returned to the court’s docket and the parties are at liberty to continue with the case in court.

“Since the mediation process is conducted confidentially and without prejudice, neither party is prejudiced by the mediation process”, she explained.

Etuk assured that the exercise will be extended to other magistracies like Ikeja, Yaba and Ebute-Meta very soon? in order to aid the administration of justice.

According to her, the LMDC provides services for disputants in various areas of law including commercial, employment, and contract, maritime, matrimonial, energy using ADR mechanism such as mediation, arbitration, conciliation, early neutral evaluation and hybrid process.

The Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse (LMDC) was established on June 11, 2002, as a public-private partnership between the High Court of Justice, Lagos State and the Negotiation and Conflict Management Group (NCMG).

Its objective is to facilitate dispute resolution within the Nigerian Justice System. It is the first court-connected Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre in Africa.

Section 3(1) of the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse empowered the Chief Judge of Lagos State to designate a week in which disputants, lawyers and neutrals would engage in the settlement of disputes through the deployment of ADR mechanisms.