Making a Case for the Abolishment of Fresh Hearing in Trial De Novo by the Application of Audio-visual Coverage of Testimonies

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought along with it a wave of transition in all of the world's institutions and economies. These changes have hitherto been called for, albeit with very less attention paid to it because of the lack of a quick realization of the essence on the part of concerned stakeholders. However, the surge of the pandemic brought with it an imperativeness for the world to reconsider its conservatism on these overt yearnings. One of such is the increased use of technology in legal systems, which for some countries of the world, had become a norm to a recognizable extent. For Nigeria, given the ostensible insistence on analogue systems, players and stakeholders had to fully reconsider the situation. And so, because the pandemic tended implicitly to put the world to a stop, and the legal system had to find a way to go on lest there be anarchy, the system had to apply the use of technology in a more drastic way. Till date, albeit reluctantly, the Nigerian Legal System (NLS) having learnt a thing or two, have consistently driven itself towards ensuring a continuous growth alongside the dynamism (in terms of technology) of the society it tends to govern, like the allowance of virtual hearings. This work tends to bring to fore a practice of justice delivery in the NLS that yields one of the greatest injustice and inhumanity on litigants; the practice of fresh hearing in trial de novo. The writer is able to demonstrate the unjust hardship occasioned on litigants on the strength of this practice, and the writer posits that such hardships could be avoided by the application of audiovisual technology. This work employs the analytical and doctrinal methods of research, and alludes to primary and secondary sources of law, in its submissions.

Keywords: Trial de novo, LegalTech, Jury, Audio-visual, Practical Application of Technology