Public reaction to the recent arrests of some judges by agents of the Department of State Services (DSS) have included calls to stop them from presiding over court sessions until their innocence or otherwise is established. These calls have come from some concerned members of the public as well as from the Nigeria Bar Association, […]
Public reaction to the recent arrests of some judges by agents of the Department of State Services (DSS) have included calls to stop them from presiding over court sessions until their innocence or otherwise is established. These calls have come from some concerned members of the public as well as from the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA. Last week, NBA’s National President Abubakar Mahmoud asked the National Judicial Council [NJC] to stop the judges from sitting pending the determination of their cases, while some pressure groups protested at the premises of the Supreme Court.
NJC however described NBA’s call as unacceptable, citing several points of law. Its Director of Information Soji Oye said NJC is guided by the Constitution which provides for it to operate within the context of the law setting it up and the presumption of the innocence of the affected judges until proven guilty or otherwise by a court of competent jurisdiction. NJC also said NBA’s call violated the provisions of its 2014 Revised Judicial Discipline Regulations for judicial officers. According to it, acceding to NBA’s call implies the imposition of disciplinary measures on judicial officers only on the strength of mere petitions against them, which could even be based on unfounded premises.
We cannot ask NJC, made up as it is of this country’s foremost judicial authorities, to violate the law or its guidelines. The situation however calls for a rethink on those guidelines in order to satisfy public expectations. We believe there were many things procedurally wrong with DSS’s ‘sting operation’ on the affected judges. The nocturnal and unorthodox measures adopted in raiding the judges’ houses and the manner of collecting “evidence” left much to be desired. Also reprehensible was the fact that DSS promptly revealed to the public what it said its agents “found” in the judges’ houses, leading to their prompt conviction in the court of public opinion.
NBA’s request for the judges’ suspension is also premature because they have not yet been charged to court as to predispose them for formal interdiction and related disciplinary measures. This fact should be well known to the NBA to have guided its leadership and saved them from any insinuation of compounding the case of the affected judges. The foregoing notwithstanding, the matter of the judges has assumed a dimension in the public domain that dictates for NJC to make a critical adjustment of its procedures and processes. NJC needs to accommodate the trending public expectations on the matter.
Many Nigerians are of the opinion that NJC is actually invoking sundry legalisms in order to defend and protect the judges from the reaches of the law in the face of the serious accusations against them by DSS. This mindset in the public domain was actually spawned by NJC itself which was portrayed by DSS as unwilling to act in respect of disciplining the judges, even when the latter had formally communicated with it earlier in the year and long before the sting operation.
Hence, while the judicial body may be relying on its procedures to justify its rather tepid response to the situation, it also needs to worry about its reputation in the public domain at this time of high profile fight against corruption in the country. Clearly, its reputation as the nation’s apex authority in establishing standards of proper official conduct by judicial officers should enjoy a higher premium than saving the skins of a few individual judges, no matter how highly placed they may be. As to the matter of stopping them from presiding over court cases, the time to do that should be once they are charged to court, which we understand would happen this week.
