Effectiveness of the Administration of Justice in Nigeria Under the Development of Digital Technologies

Objective: the traditional Nigerian judicial system has long been associated with a conservative approach and traditional methodologies of justice administration. As a developing country, Nigeria has benefited immensely from the advancement of digital technology, especially in the legal field. This is due to the fact that modern digital technologies are being rapidly adopted in Nigeria’s judicial processes for effective justice administration. However, despite the promise of digital technology, there are legal and socio-economic challenges in Nigeria that may affect its successful utilization in legal proceedings. This justifies the focus of the study – to identify the legal and socio-economic challenges of digitalization of court proceedings in Nigeria. Methods: the study combines doctrinal and non-doctrinal approaches. The former ensures theoretical understanding of the conceptual issues and prospects of court proceedings virtualization. It also allows exploring, based on primary and secondary sources (laws, monographs, research articles and internet resources), the legal and socio-economic challenges of the use of digital technologies in court proceedings. The non-doctrinal approach consists in polling, describing and analyzing the results of a sociological survey. The survey was conducted among Nigeria residents to reveal their attitudes towards innovations in digitalization and virtualization of court proceedings as well as the challenges posed by these processes. Results: the study revealed that the use of digital technologies in court proceedings in Nigeria has several prospects of ensuring effective justice administration and accurate recording and storage of information. Along with the benefits, challenges are shown that may reduce the effectiveness of court proceedings digitalization. Scientific novelty: consists in investigating the use of digital technology in Nigerian court proceedings and identifying the prospects of improving the efficiency of justice administration in Nigeria under digitalization, as well as the challenges arising from this trend. Practical significance: the study will enable stakeholders in the Nigerian legal sector to identify legal and socio-economic challenges that may adversely affect and render ineffective the use of digital technologies in legal proceedings. In addition, the article offers practical recommendations to address these challenges.