A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Sebastine Hon, has called for salary increment for judges to tackle corruption in the judiciary.

Hon said in a statement yesterday that the call became necessary in view of the fact that Justices of the Supreme Court in Nigeria earn lower than magistrates in the U.S.A.

He said that Justices of the Court of Appeal and Judges of the High Court and other courts in that grade should be paid not less than N4 million basic monthly salaries to enable them to perform well.

"My investigations reveal that a Justice of the US Supreme Court earns four times more than a Justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court. The Chief Justice of the USA earns $223,500 basic annual salary. If converted to naira, that will stand at N33.5 million. That is almost four times more than what the Chief Justice of Nigeria takes as his basic annual salary.

"One of the solutions is for the National Assembly to enact the equivalent of the Australian Judicial Remuneration Act of 2007, instead of lumping, as has been done in Nigeria under the Salaries and Allowances of Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders Act 2008," he said.