The enforcement of intra state judgment is one of the practices of law and ways of enforcing judicial pronouncements in the court of law. This process is used where a judgment delivered in a certain judicial division is to be enforced in another judicial division or district within the same state. This could be due to the judgment debtor having properties in the judicial division which is different from that in which the judgment was delivered. When this happens, the judgment creditor will be able to enforce the judgment irrespective of the fact that it was delivered in another judicial division.

This article will be focusing on the procedures for enforce an intrastate Judgment in Nigeria.

PROCEDURE FOR ENFORCEMENT OF INTRA STATE JUDGEMENT

The following are the procedure for the enforcement of intra state judgment as provided under section 104 – 114 of the Sheriff and civil process Act for the Judgment obtained in one judicial division to be enforced in another judicial division within the same state.

The procedure is as follows:  

-The Registrar of the Court that delivered the judgment, that is, “where the matter was held” will issue the appropriate process for the enforcement of the judgment to the Registrar of court in the judicial division were the judgment will be enforced.

-The process for which the judgment shall be enforced will be accompanied with the warrant in Form 11 in the 1^st Schedule of the Sheriff and Civil Process Act requesting execution.

-The “Foreign “Courts Registrar shall enforce the judgment and pay over the money realize and report back to the Court as in Form 12.

Once the intrastate judgment has been registered, it will be binding like/just a local judgment in the judicial division of its execution.

Furthermore, in practice, the procedure for the enforcement of intrastate judgment is all the same in all the jurisdictions there is no change in any of the process irrespective of the type of Court the case may be. It was in response to this principle that, the Supreme Court defined, the words, “Judgment”, As, the pronouncement of the court on the action before it; a final settlement by the court.

CONCLUSION

The Nigeria Courts are vested with powers to deliver judgment in any jurisdictions of the federation. It will be therefore amount to a waste of time of the judgment creditors if persons in favor of whom judgment was delivered cannot or are unable to reap the benefit of the judgment obtained. Enforcement of judgment is therefore as important as obtaining the judgment itself.

Reference

1. Muareen Stanley- idum & James Agaba, Esq, Civil litigation in Nigeria 2^nd Edition, 2018

Written by Julius Akomeko for The Trusted Advisors

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