Transitional Justice, Judicial Accountability and the Rule of Law

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.

Introduction 1. The Case for Judicial Accountability in Transitions 2. Truth, Transition, and Accountability of the Judiciary 3. Political Change and Judicial Reform: An International and Comparative Perspective 4. Judicial Accountability in Political Transitions: The Nigerian Context 5. Rights, the Judiciary and Constitutionalism in Transitions 6. Transition and the Judicialization of Politics: Dialectics of a Phenomenon 7. Courts to the Rescue? The Judicialization of Politics in Nigeria. Conclusion