Nigerian judges are not ghosts: They live among us
One of us, Ajayi- then a law student in the adult education scheme tried to explain it all. According to him, it is to ensure the neutrality of the judiciary for all times that judges are admonished to avoid local pressures by not interacting with the larger society. They were not to deal with cases […]
One of us, Ajayi- then a law student in the adult education scheme tried to explain it all. According to him, it is to ensure the neutrality of the judiciary for all times that judges are admonished to avoid local pressures by not interacting with the larger society. They were not to deal with cases involving their families, relations and friends or any matter in which they themselves could have any interest whatsoever. In addition, even if there was no proof that a judge could be influenced in a particular case, parties in the case were not to be allowed to even imagine the likelihood of his being biased.
Why would a professional group allow such supernatural traits to be the criteria for assessing its members? For me, I knew it would not last long at least in a country like Nigeria where most people in authority speak from both sides of the same mouth. Thanks to Justices Katsina-Alu, Salami and their colleagues in the National Judicial Council (NJC), we now know that Nigerian judges are not ghosts-they live among us; they oppress themselves; they pay lip service to the rule of law and its due process; they donot abide by the simple principles of natural justice; they donot just tell lies-they do so on oath; they over-interact with the larger society- eating, drinking and laughing at social functions which they often chair and of recent, they are not only seen but loudly heard making it obvious that they are neither better nor worse than the rest of us. For example, if the story that only 8 of the 23 members of the NJC made the decision on Salami, then there is no difference between them and the touts in our legislatures. It will be recalled that only 9 legislators of the Ogun State House of Assembly met under the watchful eyes of no less than 10 policemen, to remove their speaker and suspend 15 other members. In Plateau State, only 8 out of 24 legislators forcibly impeached Governor Dariye. In Oyo State, only 18 of the 32 legislators impeached Governor Ladoja. Comparatively therefore, Salami was not suspended; he was impeached-quorum or no quorum. Is so, what is special about judges- are they above board?
This is a question that many people are not likely to answer in the affirmative especially in election matters. The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Attahiru Jega is likely to be one such person going by his reaction to the over 150 pre-election cases filed nationwide by aggrieved politicians just before the last set of elections. Many of the cases were ex-parte orders restraining INEC from accepting and recognizing some candidates nominated for elections by their political parties. Jega at the time wrote to the Chief Justice to draw attention to what he called an “emerging trend in the political process where ex-parte orders are granted at the top of a hat by judges” For the transition Monitoring Group (TMG) “the NJC suspension in the first instance is very ridiculous, a clear coup d’état against the rule of law, coming at a time that the integrity ratings of the judiciary is going below credible level”. Honestly, from the recent activities of the NJC, there ought to be a limit to how much we admire judges. To start with, we cannot blame anyone who becomes confused over the term ’judicial precedent’ bearing in mind the inability of the NJC to follow the established rule that once a case is before a court, none of the parties involved should take further steps on it.
The hierarchy of courts is another area of concern because it was junior judges that were consecutively constituted to review the decisions of their seniors. Can an administrative panel penalize crime? It appears so in view of the conclusion of the NJC that Salami committed perjury. As it is now, perjury has a new punishment-apology. Accordingly, any false affidavit expert should not get a greater punishment than that except of course, he, like Salami refuses to apologize. In that case, he exposes himself to being punished twice as in Salami’s case where the former President of the Court of Appeal, was sanctioned twice, first-suspension for refusing to apologize to the Chief Justice and the other- a recommendation for his retirement may be for not apologizing to the NJC.
We also imagine that many people must be skeptical now about their clamour for an independent body to appoint the INEC Chairman. From what the NJC has just taken the nation through, it is hard to suggest that we can find a Nigerian body that can be independent. As for Justices Katsina- Alu and Salami, we cannot prove that they are card carrying members of any of the political parties but it is easy to know which political party supports who and why. On the one hand, are those who see nothing wrong with the pace of approval of the NJC’s recommendation of Salami’s suspension while on the other hand are those to whom ‘peaceful’ demonstrators are busy handing over their letters of protests for onward delivery to the federal government. The pain in all of this is that we the commoners can see that we have lost our hitherto acclaimed saviour-the judiciary – a body that is now seen as more partisan than the executive committees of political parties.