NBA Faults NASS On Pre-election Suits

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has criticised the National Assembly for vesting the exclusive jurisdiction of hearing and determining pre-election cases on the Federal High Court.
This follows the revelation that currently there are 1,838 pre-election cases filed ahead of next year’s general elections, for 77 judges of the court, making them to be scampering to beat the statutory 180-day deadline for hearing and concluding pre-election matters.
President, NBA, Yakubu Maikyau, who spoke  at a special court session to mark the commencement of the Federal High Court legal year 2022/2023 in Abuja, Monday, cited Sections 29(5) and 83(14) of the Electoral Act, 2022, which confer jurisdiction exclusively on the Federal High Court.
Maikyau said “the innovative and novel provisions” of the law “come with a lot of pressure on the already overloaded dockets” of the judges.
“We fault the decision of the National Assembly to limit the hearing and determination of pre-election matters to this court without regard for its infrastructural and manpower deficit.
“Judges who are members of the task force will suspend all regular cases in their respective courts due to the urgency of the electoral cases which are timebound,” the Chief Judge of the court, John Tsoho, said recently while inaugurating a task force to adjudicate on electoral disputes.
Noting the implications of stalling regular cases for pre-election suits, the NBA President said “the suspension of the hearing of such matters comes with grave consequences on the economy and affects the confidence of investors.”
Maikyau said the added workload “takes a great toll on the health of the Judges of this Court who are at the moment poorly remunerated.”
He urged the lawmakers to “reconsider this amendment to the Electoral Act 2022.”
The NBA suggested the “establishment of a court that will deal mainly with electoral and other related matters.”
Similarly, Adegboyega Awomolo, who spoke on behalf of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), said “normal cases … had to suffer adjournments thereby frustrating good and urgent causes.”
Awomolo called for the establishment of a constitutional court to handle electoral cases.