Bridging Access to Justice, Development and Justice ability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in a Developing Economy: Nigeria in View

Abstract

Justice ability as a concept is the capability of being decided by a court. It imports a just or legal right of a person to maintain an action in court and be heard on that cause by a court of competent jurisdiction. Access to justice, on the other part, is the legal rights of an aggrieved party to go to court and question the offending act of either a private person or government agency. Thus, both the concept of justice ability and access to justice implies the remedy available to an aggrieved person in a dispute between him and another to invoke the intervention of the court to enthrone justice. The court of law is a court of justice, and anybody coming before it must have a just cause. This paper is aimed at appraising the justice ability or otherwise of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. It was found that ESC rights fall short of enforceability before national courts in the majority of jurisdictions of the world. This paper maintains that the non-justice ability of ESC rights is a brazen denial of the right of access to justice in the event breach of these rights. This paper therefore advocates for the expansion of the justice ability of ESC rights in line with the improving economic resources of varying jurisdictions. The genre of rights branded economic, social and cultural rights are the rights that condition the worth of the human person, and therefore remain in dispensability for the wellbeing of every individual.