In 2010 I attended the Commonwealth Lawyers Association’s regional conference at Abuja, Nigeria and was introduced to the concept of a multi-door court. It seems to me that now the Ministry of Justice has a number of empty courts, the time is right to explore the multi-door concept and possibly use one of the empty courts for that purpose.

As I understood it from the officials at Abuja, the multi-door court will accept references from other courts, often being cases of an administrative nature, and also provide facilities for arbitrations and mediation. Surely a one-stop shop is what the public would prefer? And it could be provided at a reasonable cost by using one of the empty courts.

Jeremy Ferguson, solicitor/mediator, Barnstaple