Statute Review: Innovations In The New Kogi State High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2025

Abstract

This statute review examines the Kogi State High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2025, which replaced the state’s Civil Procedure Rules of 2006 after nineteen years without reform, drawing on the full text of both instruments. It tests the review committee’s own account of six innovations, electronic filing, virtual proceedings, the abolition of the pre-trial conference, reformed probate procedure, a revised fee schedule, and an expanded role for Alternative Dispute Resolution, against what the 2025 Rules actually provide. It finds that the account holds up well for electronic filing, probate reform, and fees, and considerably undersells the new Alternative Dispute Resolution machinery built around the Kogi State Multi-Door Courthouse. It finds the account incomplete on the pre-trial conference, since the 2006 Rules’ dedicated Pre-Trial Conference Order has indeed been removed, but so, more significantly and without public mention, has the dedicated Order on Discovery and Inspection of Document. This review argues that much of the old pre-trial conference’s practical function appears to have migrated into the new Alternative Dispute Resolution structure, while the disappearance of formal discovery is a genuine gap the committee’s own account did not acknowledge, and recommends that any future amendment or practice direction address it directly.