Revisiting Seniority & Order Of Precedence In The Legal Profession In The Light Of Mr. Chuks Okonkwo’s Ballet-Dance In The High Court Of Enugu, Sitting At Oji-River By Sylvester Udemezue

Background

A couple of days ago, my attention was drawn to a treatise
apparently written by an “Author Unknown” but later discovered to
have been actually authored by one on of our professional
colleagues, “Mr. Chuks Okonkwo,” said to be of the Ikeja NBA
Branch. In that beautiful treatise, Mr. Okonwko had narrated with
pride, how he had boldly and fearlessly challenged both a High
Court Judge and Senior Advocate of Nigeria in the High Court of
Enugu State, sitting at Oji River, Enugu State. The reason for Mr.
Okonkwo`s complaint and actions were summed up in the treatise:

“I was in court and the court was about to sit. We had taken
our seats when suddenly the Court Registrar asked those of us
seated in the front row to vacate out seats, that a SAN was coming.
We did. Five minutes later, the judge came in ad the Registrar
called up the matter involving the SAN who was the Attorney-General
& Commissioner for Justice under Sullivan Chime Esq. His name
is Anthony Ani, SAN. The SAN announce his appearance and the on the
other side did the same. As these were going on, I quickly scanned
the Cause List and noticed that no matter was listed for Mention on
the Cause List. I then stood up….”

I hope I got him well, but I think I could, in my own words,
summarize Mr. Okonkwo`s actions in this way: he then stood up and
complained bitterly, but respectfully, to the judge, in open court,
as follows:

“(1) Since the matter involving the Learned Silk (number 8
on the Cause List) was not listed for mention, the learned silk was
not entitled to have called his case out of turn. And the judge
ought to not have allowed the Silk to call the case out of turn;
(2) The Registrar was wrong to have driven Mr Okonkwo and the other
lawyers seated on the front row out of their seats just so that the
learned silk could sit. Such action of the Registrar was
embarrassing and was capable of belittling the affected lawyers
before their own clients; and (3) The actions of the court, first,
in having ordered that Mr Okonkwo and his colleagues should vacate
the front row seats for the SAN, and, second, in having allowed the
Learned Silk to mention out of tun, a case that was not listed for
mention, was injustice against Mr Okonwko and the other junior
counsel in court on that day.”

The present commentary is aimed to respectfully analyze this
particular incident which happened, as narrated by Mr. Okonkwo
himself, with a view to determining to what extent (if any) each of
Mr. Okonkwo, the judge, the Learned Silk and the Court Registrar
could be said to be justified or otherwise in their respective
actions on that day especially in the light of extant provisions of
law, professional legal ethics, the tradition of the legal
profession in Nigeria.

Position of Extant Law on the Subject

Section 6 (1) & (2) of the Legal Practitioners Act (LPA),
Cap L11, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 provides as
follows:

“(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this
Act but subject as provided in section 8 (5) and the First Schedule
hereto, all courts of law in Nigeria before which legal
practitioners are entitled to appear shall accord to every law
officer specified in this section, the following rights and
privileges, that is to say-  (a)    the
exclusive right to sit in the inner bar or, where no facilities
exist for an inner bar, on the front row of seats available for
legal practitioners; and  (b)    the right to
mention any motion in which he is appearing or any other cause or
matter which is on the list for mention and not otherwise listed
for hearing out of its turn on the cause list.
(2)    The law officers to whom this section applies
are the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Attorney-General of
any State in the Federation and the Solicitor-General of the
Federation”

Judging by the provisions of section 6 of the Legal
Practitioners Act, it would appear that the right to call a case
out-of-turn is available only where the case or motion is listed
for mention and not otherwise, while the right
itself is subject to the court’s discretion.  Further, Senior
Advocates of Nigeria are not among the persons listed in section 6
(2) of the LPA as persons for whose benefit the privileges provided
in the section enure. But this is not the end of the discussion
because a closer look at section 6 (1) shows that the subsection
itself is made to apply only “subject to”
the provisions of section 8(5) LPA and of the First
Schedule to the LPA, with the result that both the
provisions of section 8 (5) LPA and the provisions of the First
Schedule to the LPA must prevail over the provisions of section 6,
in cases of conflict. Section 8(5) LPA provides that
“legal practitioners appearing before any court,
tribunal or person exercising jurisdiction conferred by law to hear
and determine any matter (including an arbitrator) shall take
precedence among themselves according to the table of precedence
set out in the First Schedule to this Act.” The “Table of
Precedence” (Order of Precedence) in the Legal Profession is as
follows:

• The Attorney-General of the Federation.
• The Attorneys-General of the States in order of seniority as
  Senior Advocates of Nigeria and thereafter in order of seniority of
  enrolment.
• Life Benchers
• Senior Advocates of Nigeria in order of seniority.
• Persons authorized to practice as legal practitioners by virtue
  of paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of section 2 of the LPA.
• Persons whose names are on the roll in order of seniority of
  enrolment.
• Persons authorized to practice by warrant.

(see section 6(3) LPA and the First Schedule to the LPA)

Finally, on this point, Rule 26 (2) of the Rules of
Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners, 2007
commands lawyers to observe and respect the order of
precedence, notwithstanding the notion of equality at the
Bar.  The Rule provides that
“lawyers shall observe among one
another the rules of precedence as laid down by law,
and subject to this, all lawyers are to be treated on the basis
of equality of status.”

Please note the following:

• For the purposes of this table, orders of seniority shall be
  ascertained by reference to the date of the relevant instrument,
  appointment, first enrolment or warrant (the earlier the date, the
  greater the seniority) and, in the case of persons taking seniority
  within the same category from the same date m such manner as the
  Chief Justice may direct. See the First Schedule to the LPA;
• Although the First Schedule of the Legal Practitioners
  Act omitted the Life Members of the Body of
  Benchers (Life Benchers) from the Table/Order of
  Precedence, yet section 6 (3) Legal Practitioners Act is to the
  effect that Life Members of the Body of Benchers are entitled to be
  accorded the rights and privileges as are conferred on
  Attorneys-General and therefore must take precedence in court
  accordingly. Section 6(3) provides that “the rights
  and privileges conferred on the law officers by subsection (1) of
  this section shall also be accorded to any member of the Body of
  Benchers.”
• Right to call a case out-of-turn in court is not absolute; it
  is exercisable only subject to the convenience and discretion of
  the court. However, there is no doubt that where the court is
  favorably so disposed, the court or judge possesses inherent powers
  to grant to any (senior) counsel appearing before it the privilege
  to call his case out of turn, whether the case is for
  mention or for hearing (of a motion or of the substantive
  matter). This is the best interpretation to be accorded a combined
  reading/effect of sections 6 and 8 LPA, and of the First Schedule
  to the LPA. Exercise of the court`s discretion in this respect is
  unquestionable.

Meaning & Scope of The Inherent Powers of a Superior
Court of Law

The origin of the doctrine of “inherent jurisdiction/powers”
dates back to 1840, when Baron Alderson declared in the English
case of Cocker v. Tempest (1841) 7 M & W 502,
503-504 that, “the power of each court over its own processes
is unlimited; it is a power incident to all courts, inferior as
well as superior; were it not so, the court would be obliged to sit
still and see its own process abused for the purpose of
injustice.” Then, in Halsbury’s Laws of
England, “inherent jurisdiction/powers” is described as a
residual source of powers, which the court may draw upon as
necessary whenever it is just or equitable to do so. On its part,
Wikipedia defines the term, “inherent jurisdiction of a superior
court” as follows:

“a doctrine of the English^[1] common law^[2] that a superior
court^[3] has
the jurisdiction^[4] to hear any matter
that comes before it, unless a statute^[5] or rule limits that
authority or grants exclusive
jurisdiction^[6] to some other court
or tribunal^[7]. …….. In the English
case of Bremer Vulkan Schiffbau und Maschinenfabrik v.
South India Shipping Corporation Ltd, Lord
Diplock^[8] described the
court’s inherent jurisdiction as a general power to control its own
procedure so as to prevent its being used to achieve injustice.
Inherent jurisdiction appears to apply to an almost limitless set
of circumstances. …. the exercise of inherent jurisdiction is a
broad doctrine allowing a court to control its own processes and to
control the procedures before it. The power stems not from any
particular statute or legislation, but rather from inherent powers
invested in a court to control the proceedings brought before
it.”

In Nigeria, the doctrine is codified in section 6(6)(a) of the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended
which provides that “the judicial powers vested in accordance
with the foregoing provisions of this section – (a) shall
extend, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this
constitution, to all inherent powers and sanctions of a court of
law.”  In Akilu v. Fawehinmi (No
2), His Lordship, Hon Justice Nnaemeka-Agu. J.S.C.
explained the meaning and scope of “inherent jurisdiction” in the
following words:

“….  What is the nature of inherent power of a Court of
law? When will it be rightly invoked? In my judgment inherent
jurisdiction or inherent power (as it is more commonly called) of
Court is that which is not expressly spelt out by the Constitution,
or in any statute or rule but which can, of necessity, be invoked
by any court of record to supplement its express jurisdiction and
powers. It is a most valuable adjunct to the express jurisdiction
or powers conferred on our courts of record by the Constitution,
any law, or rule of court. … an inherent power, nebulous as it
usually is, does not extend the jurisdiction of a court of record.
Rather it practically lubricates its statutory jurisdiction and
makes it work. Lord Morris summarized
the rationale of it all in Connelly V.
D. P. P. (1964) A.C. 1254 at 1301 where he stated: There
can be no doubt that a Court which is endowed with a particular
jurisdiction has powers which are necessary to enable it to act
effectively within such jurisdiction. Courts, in proper cases, use
their inherent jurisdiction to control persons, say, in cases of
contempt of court; to control processes, such as when they strike
out actions which are frivolous or vexatious or an abuse of process
(see Palmer V Stooke &
Anor. (1953)14 W.A.C.A. 333; and to control inferior
courts and tribunals, say, when they order stay of proceedings.
Cases in which the courts have rightly exercised their inherent
powers are galore. See e.g. Reichel V Magrath 14
App. Cas. 665; Metropolitan Bank V Pooley 10
App. Cas. 210; Electrical Development Co. V A-G. for
Ontario (1919) A.C. 687; Foifie V Seifah
(1958) A.C. 59, at p.67…. Section 6(6)(a) deals with inherent
powers (often called inherent jurisdiction) of courts of record. As
for their nature, it is helpful to refer to an article by I.H.
Jacob of the University College, London, titled “The
Inherent Jurisdiction of the Court” in Volume 23 of
Current Legal Problems 1970″, which I believe throws some lucid
light on the problem. He stated:

In many spheres of the administration of justice, the High Court
of Justice in England exercises a jurisdiction which has the
distinctive description of being called ‘inherent’. The inherent
jurisdiction of the court may be invoked in an apparently
inexhaustible variety of circumstances and may be exercised in
different ways. This peculiar concept is indeed so amorphous and
ubiquitous and so pervasive in its operation that it seems to defy
the challenge to determine its quality and to establish its limits.
…. To understand the nature of the inherent jurisdiction of the
court, it is necessary to distinguish it first from the general
jurisdiction of the court, and next from its statutory
jurisdiction. The term ‘inherent jurisdiction of the Court’ does
not mean the same thing as ‘the jurisdiction of the court’ used
without qualification or description: the two terms are not
interchangeable, for the ‘inherent’ jurisdiction of the court is
only a part or an aspect of its general jurisdiction. The general
jurisdiction of the High Court as a superior court of records is,
broadly speaking unrestricted and unlimited in all matters of
substantive law, both civil and criminal, except in so far as that
has been taken away in unequivocal terms by statutory enactment.
The High Court is not subject to supervisory control by any other
court except by due process of appeal, and it exercises the full
plenitude of judicial power in all matters concerning the general
administration of justice within its area. Its general jurisdiction
thus includes the exercise of an inherent jurisdiction. Moreover,
the term ‘inherent jurisdiction of the court’ is not used in
contra-distinction to the jurisdiction conferred on the court by
statute. The contrast is not between the common law jurisdiction of
the court on the one hand and its statutory jurisdiction on the
other, for the court may exercise its inherent jurisdiction even in
respect of matters which are regulated by statute or by rule of
Court, so long as it can do so without contravening any statutory
provision. There is, nevertheless an important difference
between the nature of the inherent jurisdiction of the court and
its statutory jurisdiction. The source of the statutory
jurisdiction of the court is of course the statute itself which
will define the limits within which such jurisdiction is to be
exercised, whereas the source of the inherent jurisdiction of the
court is derived from its nature as a court of law, so that the
limits of such jurisdiction are not easy to define, and indeed
appear to elude definition. (Italics mine).” (http://www.nigeria-law.org/Akilu%20V%20Fawehinmi%20No%202.htm^[9])

Application of the Law to the Oji River Incident
Involving Mr. Chuks Okonkwo.  

• Based on the provisions of law discussed above, the actions of
  the Oji River High Court Registrar (as reported by MR. CHUKS
  OKONKWO himself) in having asked junior lawyers (including Mr.
  Okonwko) to vacate the front-row of the Bar section of the court,
  to allow an incoming Senior Advocate to sit, were, in my opinion,
  perfectly in order and did not amount to any injustice against the
  affected junior Lawyers. Established convention in the legal
  profession requires that the Inner Bar section of a courtroom must
  be reserved for the exclusive use of members of the inner bar,
  (which include Attorneys-General, Life Benchers, SAN’s, and
  other lawyers who are entitled to such privilege, as prescribed in
  section 2 (3) of the LPA). A Legal practitioner who is not a member
  of the inner bar is not permitted to sit on any seat located within
  the inner bar. However, in Nigeria, since our courts are not
  structured to provide for the inner bar section, the front row
  seats in the Bar section of the courtroom are by convention
  reserved for members of the inner bar. This means that NO member of
  the outer bar is permitted to sit on a front-row seat in court
  unless it is already certain that no member or the Inner Bar is
  appearing in the affected court on a particular day. One cannot be
  said to have satisfied oneself that an inner-bar member is not
  coming to court at a time when the court has not even started
  sitting. Therefore, to avoid the justified and justifiable
  “embarrassment” of having to be asked to vacate the front-row seat
  for a member of the inner bar, I think the wiser and safer thing
  for any member of the Outer Bar to do, on arrival in the courtroom,
  is to carefully and altogether avoid the front row seats. From the
  story of the Oji River, Enugu State incident, as told by MR
  OKONKWO, it is obvious that the court on that day, had not started
  sitting as at the time the registrar (apparently acting on the
  judge’s instructions) came to clear the FRONT ROW for the incoming
  Learned Silk. This means that the junior lawyers (including MR.
  OKONKWO) who were found to be comfortably seated/sitting on the
  front-row seats, had chosen DELIBERATELY to violate an established
  rule regarding respect for SENIORITY AT THE BAR. Respect seniority
  at the Bar is part of the Professional Ethics &
  Skills curriculum/syllabus as taught in the Nigerian Law
  School. So, there is no one that would deny knowledge of same.
  Besides, one of the duties a legal practitioner owes the court, the
   Legal Profession and his professional colleagues, as set out
  in the Professional Ethics & Skills syllabus,  is the
  “KNOW WHERE TO SIT IN COURT” duty, which demands of the lawyer that
  he must “select a seat that reflects his standing at
  the Bar; give up seal for elders and seniors. Avoid front-row seats
  which are reserved for members of the inner Bar. Avoid pressed
  seats.”
• Okonkwo says the judge was unfair to him and his other junior
  colleagues. I beg to disagree. I think it is Mr. Okonkwo who was
  unfair, unjust and oppressive against the senior lawyer (Learned
  silk) when he, Mr. Okonkwo chose to breach an existing convention
  that required him to avoid front-row seats inside the courtroom
  until such a time it would have become crystal clear that no inner
  bar member was coming to court. I wonder what would become of
  existing rules regarding SENIORITY AT THE BAR, if such conduct as
  was exhibited by Mr. Okonkwo was condoned and ignored! By the way,
  exactly where (which part of the Courtroom) did Mr. Okonkwo expect
  the learned senior member of the inner bar to have sat when he (Mr
  Okonkwo) had gone to occupy the front-row seat, against tradition?
  How would Mr. Okonkwo himself have felt if he had been sitting on
  the front row while the learned Silk walked in and decided to sit
  right behind Mr. Okonkwo? Comfortable? Further, what would Mr.
  Okonkwo himself have done if a similar scenario had played out in a
  court presided over by Mr Okonkwo himself as the trial judge? Would
  he, Mr Okonwko (as Hon Justice Okonkwo) have kept quiet and done
  nothing other than to allow the Learned Silk to occupy the back
  seat, right behind junior counsel? How, would Mr. Okonkwo (as “Hon
  Justice Okonkwo”) have handled/resolved this very issue?
• I liken what the judge had done through the registrar to what
  is usually referred to elsewhere as ABATEMENT OF NUISANCE. A junior
  lawyer who gets into a courtroom and decides to violate existing
  court decorum is merely constituting himself/herself a nuisance in
  court. It was in a bid to abate the nuisance that the Hon judge in
  Enugu had gently directed the registrar to advise the lawyers to
  vacate the seats. The judge merely helped Mr. Okonkwo and his legal
  ethics violators to purge themselves of their iniquity. I think Mr.
  Okonkwo owes the judge a debt of gratitude for having helped to
  call him and his fellow defaulters to order. Therefore, instead of
  standing up in open court to interrupt, disrupt, and disturb court
  proceedings with his unreasonable complaints and groundless
  vituperative remarks (which was like adding salt to injury), Mr.
  Okonkwo ought to have stood up to apologize to both the presiding
  judge and the learned silk for his improper conduct, and to
  appreciate the judge for having helped to call him to order. Better
  still, Mr Okonkwo could have kept wisely mute about the whole thing
  and allowed it to go unnoticed, since the judge and the silk (both
  of whom were absent when the Registrar cleared the front-row seats)
  would never have known who among junior counsel in court on that
  day was among those who had gone to discourteously occupy the seat
  meant for members of the Inner bar. Had Mr. Okonkwo not stood up to
  start complaining (instead of apologizing, as he ought reasonably
  to have), and later to start writing his unnecessary treatise of
  self- adulation, the judge, the learned senior counsel and the
  world of Nigerian Legal community would never have known about this
  ugly incident; and, Mr Okonkwo would have been spared the
  opproporium that usually follows such act of disrespect and
  disruption of the concept of seniority at the bar.
• At this point, I recall a very recent, slightly similar,
  scenario, although not within the legal profession. It was a news
  report earlier in 2019: “Young man sends Prof Wole Soyinka
  away for occupying his allocated seat on a plane”
  (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.legit.ng/amp/1244976-young-man-sends-prof-wole-soyinka-occupying-allocated-place-a-plane.html^[10]). It was
  reported of how Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, had gone into an
  airplane to (perhaps mistakenly) occupy another passenger’s seat,
  and how the passenger (true owner of the seat) had come on board
  and demanded that the Nobel laureate must stand up for him to sit
  on his seat. It was said that the Nobel laureate had quietly
  complied with the demands of the true owner of the seat. News
  report of the  incident had expectedly elicited mixed
  reactions from Nigerians —-  see “Outrage as aircraft
  passenger asks Wole Soyinka to vacate seat.”(https://lifestyle.thecable.ng/outrage-as-aircraft-passenger-ask-wole-soyinka-to-vacate-his-seat/^[11]). My own
  view was simple: respect begets respect. If you want to retain your
  respect and also to be respected, as you deserve, you must be ready
  to accord others the respect and privilege they deserve. This is a
  rule of life; be a reflection of what you’d like to see in
  others. If you want respect, give respect. You get in return what
  you give. Ralph Waldo Emerson summarizes it all:
  “men are [respected] and respectable only
  as they respect^[12].
  Happily, Prof Soyinka had shortly thereafter issued a statement in
  which he, being a polished gentleman, had declared, “I
  Can’t Pick A Wrong Seat And Justify It” (i-cant-pick-a-wrong-seat-and-justify-it-soyinka-speaks-on-aircraft-incident/^[13]). Now, one
  may want to compare the two incidents:  Soyinka`s and Mr.
  Okonkwo`s scenarios:
• Prof Soyinka`s (picking a wrong seat) was a clear mistake, as
  he was later to explain. On the other hand, Mr. Okonkwo had
  deliberately picked the wrong seat inside the courtroom, as one
  could gather from his later outburst and treatise.
• Unlike Soyinka who made no attempts at justifying his wrong
  actions, Mr.Okonkwo has been working so hard to justify his
  deliberate breach of courtroom decorum.
• Unlike Soyinka who on being blamed/corrected, quickly took the
  correction by swiftly remedying his wrongs and going back to his
  own seat, and further by publicly admitting his errors, Mr. Okonkwo
  (although he complied with the registrar`s directive; had he any
  alternatives?) had viewed his being asked to go to the right seat
  as an act of injustice against him.

I think the best way to describe MR OKONKWO’s conduct on
this particular occasion is that of an offender complaining
against the offended.

• A brief highlight of some salient advantages inherent in the
  practice of calling cases out-of-turn is
  appropriate at this juncture. For this purpose, I reproduce a
  portion of my article titled, “Senior Advocate of Nigeria:
  To be or not to be,” and published on September 03,
  2009:

“…. mentioning cases out-of-turn in court is not an
exclusive preserve of SANs; it is open to all our senior legal
colleagues. The issue of who is a senior, and therefore entitled to
mention case out-of-turn on a particular day in court, generally
depends on the circumstances; a lawyer who is only five years at
the Bar could become a senior for this purpose if all the other
lawyers in court at that moment are his juniors.  Again, there
are immense benefits derivable by junior lawyers from their seniors
mentioning cases out-of-turn in court: there can be no better ways
of acquiring the experience necessary to become a successful legal
luminary than watching your senior colleagues present their cases
in court and learning from their own dexterity and skills as well
as flaws and pitfalls; this was even partly the theory behind the
phenomenon of mentioning cases out-of turn in the first place.
Further, the issue of who gets which legal briefs today in Nigeria
does not depend solely on whether or not one is a senior advocate;
after all, most of the richest lawyers in Nigeria are not SANs. The
issue is clearly dependent on so many variables, including previous
dealings, specialization, competence and exposure, retainership,
social relationship, among others. By and large, clients prefer
lawyers who have previously handled their briefs diligently and
honestly to unfamiliar ones; in fact, some establishments insist on
briefing only lawyers on their retainer irrespective of their
status. Similarly, most individual clients would prefer their
briefs to go to legal practitioners with whom they are accustomed
or whom they consider proficient or competent, notwithstanding
their status.”*SOURCE: ?https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanguardngr.com/2009/09/senior-advocate-of-nigeria-to-be-or-not-to-be/amp/^[14])

• Finally, Mr. Okonkwo expresses fear about how his clients would
  perceive him (Mr. Okonkwo) following/after that incident.  Mr.
  Okonkwo thinks that the actions of the judge and registrar had
  belittled him before his own clients who might, as a result of the
  incident, no longer attach any much importance to him as a lawyer,
  since he was not a SAN. Permit me to say at once, with due respect,
  that Mr. Okonkwo`s ordeals were self-imposed; if Mr. Okonkwo feels
  disparaged or belittled before his own clients, as a result of his
  having been asked to vacate the front-row seat for a Senior
  Advocate, I respectfully think that neither the Court Registrar nor
  the judge is to blame for this. Only Mr. Okonkwo is to blame,
  although I am unable to see how the actions of the judge could have
  been interpreted, by a reasonable bystander, as having adversely
  affected Mr. Okonkwo`s ranking or rating among his clients. In my
  view, Mr. Okonkwo is just trying unnecessarily to make a MOUNTAIN
  out of a molehill. The Oji river, Enugu incident was strictly a BAR
  ISSUE that had/has nothing to do with clients or non-lawyers. But I
  must repeat that Mr Okonkwo, alone, and no other, is to blame for
  feeling the way he feels. If Mr. Okonkwo had done the right thing,
  Mr. Okonkwo would never have felt “embarrassed,” belittled or
  unjustly treated. If Mr. Okonkwo`s clients would ever begin to see
  Mr. Okonkwo differently after the Enugu incident, although I doubt
  it, then it is because Mr. Okonkwo’s clients had watched with
  amazement how Mr. Okonkwo flouted a long-standing legal ethical
  rule; it is perhaps because Mr. Okonkwo’s clients now think that he
  has no respect for his seniors within the profession, and that he
  has the habit of flouting simple courtroom decorum. Either way,
  anyway, Okonkwo has only himself to blame. How I wish Mr. Okonkwo
  would or could for a minute put himself in the shoes of a
  disinterested bystander. How I wish he would. Unfortunately, as
  Alfred Richard Orage, the observation of others is
  coloured by our inability to observe ourselves impartially. We can
  never be impartial about anything until we can be impartial about
  our own organism.^[15]
• All in all, the Oji River incident was/is a hard lesson in
  humility for Mr. Okonkwo and his colleagues. Yes, I think from the
  above, each and all legal practitioners in Nigeria can easily draw
  the following lessons:

1. The concept of SENIORITY AT THE NIGERIAN BAR is
   real. The table/order of precedence is based on seniority,
   and the Order of Precedence is binding on all legal
   practitioners;
2. The demands of the concept of seniority and precedence at the
   bar come with certain legally-recognized privileges and rights
   which every member of the bar cannot flout with impunity;
3. The concept or notion of Equality of all Legal practitioners is
   subject to the concept of Seniority & Order of Precedence at
   the Bar;
4. The right of a senior counsel to mention a case out-of-turn is
   not limited to only cases that listed for mention; it extends to
   all cases, subject to the court`s discretion/leave. A court of law
   possesses the inherent powers/jurisdiction to permit any (senior)
   counsel in court to call his or her case out-of-turn, as the court
   may deem fit, in deserving circumstances, whether the case is
   originally listed for mention or for hearing; and
5. Every lawyer in Nigeria has a perpetual duty to respect the
   demands of courtroom decorum, including knowing where to sit in
   court, and the duty to voluntarily vacate seats for elders and
   seniors.

Conclusion

Like every other profession, the legal profession has an ethical
standard, otherwise known as legal ethics, established through
customs, conventions and garnered from jurists and law books. The
Black’s law Dictionary (8th edition
(2004) by Bryan .A. Garner, page 913) defines legal ethics as
“the minimum standards of appropriate conduct within the legal
profession, involving the duties that its members owe one another,
their clients and the courts….The written regulations governing
those duties (e.g. Rules of Professional Conduct)…. Legal ethics
cuts more deeply than legal regulation: it concerns the
fundamentals of our moral lives as lawyers.” Legal ethics are
meant to uphold the honour and nobility of the legal profession and
to guard the integrity of law. As Lord Denning,
MR, observed in the famous case of Rondel
v. Worsley (1967) 1 Q B
441, legal ethics is a code of law, and a
code of honour; if the barrister breaks the code, he is offending
against the rules of the legal profession and is subject to its
discipline.  I again salute the Hon presiding Judge at the
High Court of Enugu State, Oji River Division, for having taken the
right steps towards preserving the honour and integrity of the
legal profession in Nigeria. Experience is a hard teacher; she
gives the test first, and the lesson afterwards. Mr. Okonkwo has
learnt the hard way! I enjoin others to learn by observation, from
Okonkwo’s experience. Best regards to my learned friend, Mr. Chuks
Okonkwo. God bless the Nigerian Bar.

Respectfully,
Sylvester UDEMEZUE(UDEMS)(29 October 2019)

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