The Judiciary and anti-corruption war

The arrest of some judges recently by the the Department of State Security (DSS) has brought to the fore corruption in the judiciary and the judiciary as a subject of the anti-corruption war. The judiciary is the third arm of government in the country. It is the arm of government charged with interpreting and applying […]

The arrest of some judges recently by the the Department of State Security (DSS) has brought to the fore corruption in the judiciary and the judiciary as a subject of the anti-corruption war. The judiciary is the third arm of government in the country. It is the arm of government charged with interpreting and applying law in live cases. Section 6 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution vest in the judiciary the power to preside over disputes between feuding parties and adjudicate on them.
By the provisions of section 6 of the Constitution and by popular public sentiments, the judiciary by its very character is supposed to be the most consciencious of the three arms of government. Indeed, the judiciary is government speaking justice, not politics with the people. By the demands of their functions, the legislature needs knowledge, the executive power and the judiciary conscience. Usually when two litigants appear before a judge, one of them is lying. It is the office of the judge to identify who is lying and enter judgment against him and who is telling the truth and enter judgment for him. The judge is fortified to discharge this function of truth identification if he is not corrupt. If he is corrupt, he can easily be bought by the lying party to lie along with him by entering judgment for him.
Because of the prevalence of corruption in the judiciary, the revered institution has been hit by the anti-corruption hurricane and lawyers, well some lawyers, are spiting fire. Though the reaction of the lawyers is to be expected, it is at the same time strange. It is to be expected because the relation between the Bar and Bench is one of reverence flowing from the Bar to the Bench. It is also to be expected because judges hamstrung by the character of their office from defending themselves have traditionally been defended by lawyers. On the other hand, it is strange because the very lawyers that often complain of corruption against judges particularly when they lose their cases, are the same lawyers screaming blue murder because judges suspected of corruption are proceeded against. One would have thought they would jubilate that corruption which used to cost them victory in good cases they believed they would win was being stamped out of the judiciary. Well, apparently lawyers screaming bloody murder are not thinking this way. They are either saying yes we know there is corruption among judges, but they are our clansmen, leave them alone; or yes, they are corrupt, but they are sacred cows that cannot be touched, in fact touching them is taboo.
Outside the Bar and Bench, what people see in the hardline defence of the judges by the lawyers is an arrogant and contemptuous shenanigan outrage to suatain a system that feed the lawyers. Though lawyers compain of corruption against judges, it is the same lawyers that corrupt the judges. Litigants do not give money to judges directly; they pass the money to the judges through the lawyers. The lawyers as it were are the conduit pipe through which the judges get corrupted. As conduit pipes, some of the lucre going to judges do stick to the lawyers and never get to the judges. Sometimes nothing even gets to the judges. Fact is, some of the lawyers threatening fire and brimstone on the arrest of the judges are not fighting for the judges but for themselves. It is because of the corrupt influence of lawyers on judges that in Ontario Province Canada where the judiciary was sought to be purged of rotten eggs, it was argued that the purge must begin with lawyers. The purge must begin with lawyers by firming up during their legal training rules of professional ethics that would restrain them from corruption. Perhaps this is what Nigeria also needs to do.     
Lawyers will say they have no quarrel with weeding out of corrupt judges but with the way and manner this is done. Fine. The government also has no quarrel with the poisition of the lawyers but with the spirit of that position.
When the wind of corruption was blowing across Nigeria, it did not pass the judges by. It blew through them as through everyone else. Why then do lawyers want the wind of the anti-corruption war to pass judges by? Perhaps more than the other two arms of government, the judiciary needs to be cleansed by the anti-corruption war. The judiciary, as is popularly said, is the last hope of the common man. This is not just a saying, but a fact. If the judiciary because of corruption is for the highest bidder, then the common man is without hope. If he finds he has no hope in the order established by the state, he will find hope in anarchy.   
More than arresting judges, our judiciary needs a Ghana-style purge of the judiciary by the Ghanain Judicial Council alongside the Chief Justice of Ghana. Like Femi Falana rightly observed, if the NJC has done this in Nigeria, the DSS wouldn’t have resorted to the desperate measure of arresting the judges the way it did. As in Ghana, the purge of the judiciary in Nigeria can only be meaningfully carried out through intelligence gathering on corruption activities of judges. The same DSS that arrested the judges can carry out the intelligence gathering towards the end of the purge. 
The anti-corruption war is going round the three arms of government. It has since hit the National Assembly. Bukola Saraki the Senate President was the first to be hit by the anti-corruption gale. He was arraigned before the Code of Conduct Tribunal for false and non assets declaration. Soon the anti-graft tornado touched down on Saraki again – this time on both him and his deputy Ike Ekweremadu. They were arraigned before an Abuja High court for forgery of Senate Standing Orders 2015. While charges against the leadership of the National Assembly on forgery have been withdrawn, Saraki’s prosecution for false and non declaration of assets before the Code of of Conduct Tribunal is still going on.
In the course of time, the anti-graft war will hit the executive. What goes round, comes round. The current onslaught of the war on the judiciary is only a phase in the anti-corruption war. This being the case, the judiciary should accept the eventuality of the war in its hallowed chambers instead of going to town by itself or through the lawyers crying foul.  
Lilymjok is the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Legal Matters, Research and Documentation.