Transitional Justice, Judicial Accountability and the Rule of Law

With a Foreword by Professor Abimbola Olowofoyeku, Brunel University

'This book makes a distinct contribution to our understanding of the challenges facing transitional justice institutions by shining fresh light on the need for finding effective mechanisms for holding judges accountable for their participation in authoritarian political orders.'-Frantois Du Bois, School of Law, University of Nottingham

'Too much has been excused in the name of a surface legality, of a professed duty to uphold law even where it blatantly conflicts with justice under authoritarian rule. Through a pain-staking analysis of the institutions of his home country, Nigeria, Yusuf mounts a careful but devastating critique on judicial subterfuge and institutional evasion. This is a fine book. There is rigour in the analysis and an urgency in the writing, in the imperative that judges face up to their responsibility, that the 'accountability gap' be redressed, that complicity not be forgotten or excused.'-Emilios Christodoulidis, Law School, University of Glasgow

Transitional Justice, Judicial Accountability and the Rule of Law addresses the importance of judicial accountability in transitional justice processes. Despite a general consensus that the judiciary plays an important role in contemporary governance, accountability for the judicial role in formerly authoritarian societies remains largely elided and under-researched. Hakeem O. Yusuf argues that the purview of transitional justice mechanisms should, as a matter of policy, be extended to scrutiny of the judicial role in the past. Through a critical comparative approach that cuts through the transitioning experiences of post-authoritarian and post-conflict polities in Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa, the book focuses specifically on Nigeria. It demonstrates that public accountability of the judiciary through the mechanism of a truth-seeking process is a necessary component in securing comprehensive accountability for the judicial role in the past. Transitional Justice, Judicial Accountability and the Rule of Law further shows that an across-the-board transformation of state institutions - an important aspiration of transitional processes - is virtually impossible without incorporating the third branch of government, the judiciary, into the accountability process.

Hakeem O. Yusuf is a lecturer in Law at Queen's University Belfast.