Book Description

Rivers State was created out of the former Eastern Nigeria on 27 May 1967 by virtue of the States (Creation and Transitional Provisions) Decree No. 14 of 1967, and inherited Eastern Nigeria legislation in accordance with section 1(5) of the said Decree. Consequently, legislation applicable to Rivers State as at 27 May 1967 consisted of the Laws contained in The Revised Edition of The Laws of Eastern Nigeria 1963 and those enacted between 1963 and 1967. Thereafter, Edicts were promulgated by the successive Military Governors of Rivers State between 1968 and 28 May 1999, interspersed with brief periods of democratic Government that enacted Laws. The first and only revision of the Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria was published as The Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999 containing legislation still in force at that time. It should be noted that by virtue of section 3 of the Revised Edition (Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria) Law 1991, there may be Laws which, although omitted in The Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999, still have the force of law, just like those included in it. Unfortunately, there is an operational disconnect between the enactment of legislation and their publication in the official form either in the Official Gazette or in bound annual volumes as required by law.Consequently, it becomes a Herculean task to search for every piece of legislation which may be hidden in volumes of files containing signed copies or among thousands of copies of the Official Gazette littered in several locations! Herein lies one aspect of the indispensability of this book, the first edition of which was published in 1994. Without this book, citizens, businesses, organisations, law enforcement agencies, lawyers, Customary Court Judges, Magistrates, High Court Judges, Federal High Court Judges, Justices of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, various Rivers State Government Ministries and Departments, etc. may not be aware of some of the existing laws of Rivers State that are in force. The Author Dr Leesi Ebenezer Mitee holds a doctoral degree (PhD) of Tilburg University, The Netherlands; Master of Laws degree (LLM) of the University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom; Barrister-at-Law postgraduate professional law practice certificate (BL) of the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, Nigeria; Bachelor of Laws degree (LLB) and Higher National Diploma (HND) in Town Planning and Country Planning, both of the Rivers State University, Nigeria. Leesi, a former legal research national consultant to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)on the 1998 PCASED project and a legal research consultant to the government of Rivers State of Nigeria on the Laws of Rivers State, is the global pioneer advocate of the universal recognition of the right of free access to public legal information as a stand-alone or substantive human right. He discussed the concept of free access to public legal information and the proposal for its universal recognition elaborately in his 628-page PhD thesis, The Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information: Proposals for its Universal Recognition and for Adequate Public Access. His Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information (HURAPLA) website ( publiclegalinformation.com/ ) is dedicated to actualising the law-reform and policy-relevant proposals and recommendations in his PhD thesis. Dr Mitee's special research interests include different issues in the concept of the human right of free access to public legislation; legal informatics or legal information technology (the application of information technology to legal processes and specialised legal information systems); public access to indigenous customary law; indigenous rights; and legal systems. More resources on Dr Leesi Ebenezer Mitee's books are available on his Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information (HURAPLA) website ( publiclegalinformation.com/ ) and PublishThem.Com website ( publishthem.com/ ).