JUDICIAL ACTIVISM; NEW GARMENT FOR SECTION 16, COURT OF APPEAL ACT, 2004

Disputes are inherent in human interactions. They accompany changes jn behavior compelled by changes in circumstances. In other words, disputes call for readjustment of relationships. This adjustment may be minimal radical, gradual or temporal. However, whatever the degree of change disputes engender, they are not in themselves bad. On the contrary, they can be veritable enhancers of human relationship. Disputes sometimes are desirable to effect change, generate new ideas, test existing ideas, establish and test boundaries between the possible and the impossible, reveal and exorcise fears, test group cohesion, build teams, reveal different needs and interest among individuals and among groups, explore personalities, bring feelings into the open and create mutual dependence. These positive effects of conflict can only be midwife by a dispute resolution mechanism that is flexible, time propelled, accessible and fair. According to Aeropagitica “for this is not liberty...that no grievance ever should arise...but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed then is the utmost bound of civil liberty that wise men look for”! Since the Act of Settlement, the process of governance has cascaded from theocracy to representative government in varying form. In these forms, the business of administration, dispute resolution and rules crafting now vest with different bodies of the people. While the legislature makes the laws the judiciary interprets 1 and the executive administer the laws. The classical treaties of Adam Smith’, A.V. Dicey’ and Montesquieu\" jurisprudentially set the tone for modern governance built on the tripod of division of labour, rule of law and separation of powers moderated by checks and balances.