Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is the official power to make legal decisions and judgements. Jurisdiction is the superstructure upon which the judical power of a court of law is founded. In other words, jurisdiction is the life wire, the bedrock and foundation of all judicial and even quasi-judicial proceedings.
Consequently, any decision reached without jurisdiction by a court of law or any tribunal is generally said to be null, void and of no legal effect whatsoever. In GTB v. TOYED (Nig) LTD & Anor. (2016) LPELR – 4181 (CA) the Nigerian Court of Appeal, Per Ndukwe-Anyanu V.C.A, restated the elementery law thus:
“The law is well settled and it no longer admits of any argument that jurisdiction is the very basis and the life wire of every matter and on which any court tries or hears a case. It is metaphorically speaking, the life blood of all trials, whether it be at the court of trial or on appeal and without which all such trials and hearings are a nullity notwithstanding how well or meticulous such a trial or proceeding had been conducted or how sound or profound the resultant judgement. It is simply a nullity”.
Per Nweze J.C.A (as he then was) in University of Ilorin v. Oluwadare (2009) All FNLR (Pt 452) 1175 at 1204 “…..jurisdiction is to court what a gate or door is to a house. That is why the question of a court’s jurisdiction is called a threshold issue.
It is at the threshold (that is at the gate) of the temple of justice (the court). To be able to gain access to the temple (that is the court) a prospective litigant must satisfy the gate keeper that he has a genuine cause to be allowed ingress. Where he fails to convince the gate keeper, he will be denied access to the inns of the temple. The gate keeper as vigilant as he is always will readily intercept and query all persons who intrude in his domain.
The preeminence of jurisdiction as a sine qua non in all judicial proceedings is such that an objection to jurisdiction can be raised at any time before, during and after a proceeding before the same court or even for the first time on appeal at the high courts, including the Supreme Court. Despite the clarity of the law on this point it is still a well entrenched daily practice in the Nigerian courts, in both civil and criminal proceedings to see cases raising issues of jurisdiction. Such cases would thereby compel the defendant or an accused person to raise a preliminary objection to the jurisdiction of court to hear or determine the cases. Sometimes, the objection may be raised suo motu by the court. However, such an objection is raised, it is also an elementary law that it must first be resolved by the court one way or the other before the substantive proceeding is commened.
For a court to assure jurisdiction over any case it must first be competent to do so. A court is said to be competent or said to possess jurisdiction when certain prerequisite conditions are present. The preeminence of these prerequiste is underscored by the fact that once any one of them is missing then the court would be incompetent. This is why once the jurisdiction of the court is challenged it must be considered first before any other consideration.

Nkechi Bright-Ewere