Staying Above Board At The Bench

The saying that “the judiciary is the last hope of the common man” is a truism that endures for all ages.
Such a universal acknowledgement of the role of the judiciary, therefore, underscores the necessity for a vibrant and efficient judicial system in any polity.
Jurists and scholars are unequivocal on the fact that the “Rule of Law” is sacrosanct and a prime requirement for any society that hopes to make any meaningful political and socio-economic progress.
In the main, the rule of law sustains any society through fair and just process of adjudication in disputes, which often involve citizens and institutions. It allows for peace, order and equity in the society.
Analysts, therefore, see judges and magistrates, who are the principal operators of the judicial system, as public officers who must always be seen to be above board, in order to earn the citizens’ respect and ensure the dignity of their office.
Mr Joseph Daudu (SAN), the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), also expressed a similar viewpoint, saying that judges must always protect their integrity at all times.
“The transparency of the judicial system is like a delicate ornament, which must be kept shining and pure at all times,” he said.
Daudu’s comments came against the backdrop of the controversy that trailed the recent courtesy visit of Mr Justice Ibrahim Auta, the President of the Federal High Court, to the EFCC Chairman, Mrs Farida Waziri, in her office.
Analysts note that in spite of the high standards demanded of judges as dispensers of justice, the judges, as humans, also face enormous challenges, which include undue pressures from powerful forces and other forms of temptations.
Against the backdrop of “black market” injunctions, questionable ex-parte orders, unnecessary adjournments and other controversies trailing the courts, recent concerns about conduct of judges are very apt.
At a valedictory court session, in honour of the retired Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Dan Abutu, on June 15, stakeholders expressed varying viewpoints on their expectations from judges in the nation’s judicial system.
Mr Godwin Ogboji, an Abuja-based legal practitioner, advised judges against demeaning their high offices via needless visits to offices of other top government officials from the hallowed chambers of their courts.
Judges, Ogboji insisted, must strive to adhere to the principles of separation of powers, which were unwittingly eroded through their unnecessary interactions with other government functionaries.
Mr Kayode Ajulo, another lawyer, said that judges must always endeavour to strike a balance between their judicial and social dispositions, so as not to create any impression of bias in the minds of litigants.
“Like Caesar’s wife, the judges must always be above board,” Ajulo said, adding that judges had a prime responsibility to ensure that the rule of law was respected at all times.
“The alternative to this is anarchy,” Ajulo warned, stressing further that everyone had the responsibility to promote the evolution of a society that is politically, socially and economically stable.
He, however, pointed out that judges must always be receptive of criticisms from members of the public, with regards to their conduct in and outside the courtroom.
Mr Thompson Bernard, a Lagos-based legal practitioner, shared Ajulo’s viewpoint but stressed that judges after all, were not infallible since some of them had been sacked over shady and unethical behaviour.
“No country can outgrow its social encumbrances with a rotten judicial system. The public must be pro-active in monitoring the conduct of the court officials and the judges, in particular.
“The more critical people are about the action of judges, the more cautious the judges will become,” Bernard said.
Observers noted a curious scenario, which played itself out recently, when a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) led other senior lawyers to challenge the way and manner a judge handled a multi-million fraud suit involving a former minister.
In specific terms, they filed a petition against the judge for alleged high-handedness and bias over his refusal of bail in what the petitioners viewed as a purely bailable offence.
They anchored their arguments on Section 32 of the Constitution, which considered an accused person innocent until he or she was pronounced guilty after trial.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, on June 23 also re-echoed the need for judges to jealously guard their integrity, when he swore in two new justices of the Supreme Court.
He chided those he called “judicial interlopers” and “mischief makers”, some of who, ironically, came from the bench, bar and the larger public. Their common aim, he added, was to subvert the rule of law and the judicial system.
Katsinal-Alu, warned that the National Judicial Council (NJC) would not spare any errant judges or lawyers over any form of misconduct henceforth, adding that the nation’s judiciary had come such a long way and would never condone self-destruction efforts.
“The judiciary ought to be stabilizing the nascent democracy. It has come a long way and no judicial officer will be allowed to destroy it at this crucial point,” he warned.
No doubt, the high expectation from the nation’s Bench, as key stakeholders in Nigeria’s democratic growth, has been of enormous concern to many citizens in recent times.
Prof. Attahiru Jega, the Chairman of INEC, once expressed some reservations over the scores of injunctions against the nominations and substitutions of candidates of political parties, in the build up to the April polls. He noted that such legal decisions even threatened the effective conduct of the April polls.
Mr Simeon Nwakaudu, President of Media Development Initiative (MDI), a non-governmental organization, said it had become necessary for more powers to be ceded to the political parties, so as to reduce the pressure on the courts in political matters.
He, nonetheless, insisted that judges must be frank, articulate and unbiased in matters related to the administration of justice.
He lamented that the country’s judicial system had yet to protect and promote the real ideals of the rule of law because of various human factors, claiming that many innocent people had been wrongly convicted in the past.
On his part, Justice Abutu warned that undue delay in trials, occasioned by needless adjournments, inadvertently bred corrupt tendencies in the judicial system, while it also amounted to the denial of justice.
He asked for new regulations in the judicial system, so as to combat the worrisome spate of adjournments, ex-parte, interlocutory motions and injunctions, all of which are largely responsible for delayed trials.
In specific terms, he canvassed for a ceiling on the number of times cases could be adjourned, and number of applications that could be made at the instance of parties to litigations.
Mr Akpan Ekerewem, an Abuja-based human rights activist, agreed with the retired judge, stressing that the rule of the Common Law, which permitted parties to apply to amend their processes at any stage of court proceedings had been blatantly abused.
He said that judges must guard and preserve the courts’ jurisdictions, while erring judges should be sanctioned.
Ekerewem argued that recent public scrutiny of the activities of judges was healthy for the polity, adding that it signified an increase in the public awareness regarding the need to maintain sanity in the country’s judicial system.
Mr Sunday Ejike, a senior journalist who writes for the People’s Daily newspaper, said that there were “good and bad judges” in the country, stressing that recent allegations of corruption leveled against some judges could not be simply ignored.
Another journalist, Ahuraka Isah, accused some “powerful litigants” as culpable in the inducement of judges to obtain favourable judgments and injunctions.
According to him, the Nigeria Judicial Council (NJC) ought to be overhauled to enable it to play its role as the overseer of the law officers more effectively.
A cleric, Pastor Samuel Adeyemi, expressed the viewpoint that judges as humans were also open to temptations, adding, however, that in line with the ethics and standards of their calling, judges must always strive to live above board.
He expressed worry at the tendency of judges nowadays, to socialize in clubs, golf courses, town hall meetings and other places, where one could never find them in the past, when ethical standards were very high.
Despite these challenges, judiciary analysts say that Nigerian judges are still among the best in the world, as many of them had been appointed to top judicial posts across the world in recognition of their quality service delivery.
They, nonetheless, note that as the times are quite challenging, adequate mechanisms ought to be in place within the judicial system, so as to save the judiciary from self-destruction tendencies brought about by undue external interferences, internal intrigues or corrupt tendencies.
Odeh writes for News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Martin Odeh