No More Titles Of ‘Honorable’ & ‘Lordship’ For Serving Justices Of Supreme and Appeal Courts In Nigeria — Intersociety – TheNigerialawyer

Henceforth, there shall be no addition by Intersociety of
distinguished titles of ‘Honorable’ and ‘Lordship’ or ‘Honorable
Justices’ and ‘Their Lordships’ and their singular components to
the names of all serving Justices of Nigeria’s Supreme and Appeal
Courts. This is until further notice.

The pronouncement is our moral protest against the named for
their anti democratic roles in the 2019 Presidential Poll court
proceedings and their verdicts. In placing the moral protest
against the named, the principle of vicarious liability or
responsibility was applied. The most undoing of it all by the two
Courts was brazen denial of fair hearing; the grand foundation of
the Judiciary as the ‘last hope of common man’.

The country’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, apart from
introducing Ape Quotient as a new criterion for vying for elective
public offices in the country, have also legitimatized and
revolutionalised ‘kill-and-bury’ politics in the country’s
electioneering and momentarily, if not permanently deleted the due
recourse to judicial remedies and their hopeful expected
outcomes.

What just played out in the Bayelsa and Kogi State staggered
gubernatorial polls is just the beginning. The newly rubber
stamping roles of the country’s judiciary in matters of election
court cases now provide political actors in Nigeria with violence
and bloodletting, military and police supervised rigging and other
forms of electoral fraud and brigandage as the only option
left.

The above was the position of Int’l Society for Civil Liberties
& Rule of Law-INTERSOCIETY as contained in a statement issued
today in Onitsha and signed by Chinwe Umeche, Esq., Head of
Democracy & Good Governance, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq., Head
of Civil Liberties & Rule of Law, Samuel Kamanyaoku (Comrade),
Head of Field Data Collection & Documentation and Emeka
Umeagbalasi, Chair of the Board of Intersociety.

In other words, letters and other public references to the
serving Justices of Supreme Court or Court of Appeal shall
henceforth bear common titles of ‘the Justices of the Supreme
Court’ or ‘the Justices of the Court of Appeal’. Their greeting
titles shall change from ‘Their Lordships’ to ‘Sirs’/’Madams’
(designed in moral law or ethics for men and men with older
ages).

Singularly, it shall no longer be ‘the Honorable Justice’, but
‘Mr. Justice’ or ‘Your/His Lordship’, but ‘Sir’/’Madam’. This moral
position or obligation of ours excludes lawyers and criminologists
working with Intersociety. The exclusion is only in their
individual and ‘outside-our-group’ capacities. They are at liberty,
in their private capacities, to choose otherwise.

For the avoidance of doubt, the advanced dictionary checks
concerning the title-honorable indicate that the title is a noble
title meant for people of noble character and conduct such as
unstained, incorruptible and distinguished judges in the hallowed
chambers of justice.

As a matter of fact, it is defined by the Dictionary of
Competent Reference as (a) bringing or worthy of honor, and (b)
used as a title indicating eminence or distinction, given
especially to judges and certain officials of high honor. The same
Dictionary defines ‘lordship’ as a noble or respectful form of
reference given to a judge or bishop or a man of respected
character and conduct.

Nigerians and other people of good conscience are therefore
invited to determine whether the serving Justices of Supreme Court
and Court of Appeal, vicariously speaking, are still truly worthy
of bearing such impeccable titles in view of their recent outings
over the post 2019 Presidential Poll court proceedings and
verdicts.

In the immortal words of late Bench/Juridical icon, Oputa C.
(JSC), ‘a corrupt or stained judge is worst than a mad man
(mentally imbalanced) man running amok with a sharp machete in a
crowded market place’.

Statistics:
Undemocratic Role Of The Court Of Appeal
It is still shocking and unquenchably saddening that against all
odds or despite damnable reports by several internationally
respected election monitoring bodies, the Nigeria’s Court of
Appeal, serving as the ‘court of first instance’ in the
Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, magisterially and
dictatorially reverted to ‘technical justice’ to legitimatize the
controversial poll. The Court deliberately refused to dispense
justice fairly and credibly especially in strictness of the 180
days provided or allowed.

Despicably and condemnably, the President of the Court of
Appeal, the same authority that constitutionally constituted all
Election Petitions’ Tribunals in Nigeria including Presidential
Poll Tribunal; additionally introduced ‘politics of non-recusement’
and insisted on ‘being a judge in his (her) own case”. The PCA
deliberately dragged his (her) refusal to step aside from the Panel
for weeks, before sluggishly stepping aside.

In the end and going by our counting, 113 days were deliberately
wasted out of the constitutionally allowed 180. This was a crucial
matter filed since 18th March 2019. The Court finally commenced
hearing proper on 1st July 2019 when it ordered the
lead-petitioners to present and proof their case in ‘ten days’;
thereby leaving only 67 days for all the parties and adjournment
period for the judgment of the Court, delivered on 11th Sept 2019
or barely seven days to the 180 days constitutional deadline.

The most shocking and disappointing of all was that the
lead-petitioners who pleaded for 400 witnesses and tendering and
defense of bundles of election related documents including INEC
server controversy, were given only ten days to ‘proof their case
beyond reasonable doubt and/or based on preponderance of evidence
(i.e. the quality or fact being greater in number, quantity or
importance)’.

This was also a case requiring round-the-clock sittings
including at weekends. As voluminous and widespread as the case
was, the Court had only 180 days mandate involving judicial
inquires into how the election was conducted in the country’s
176,000 polling units; yet the Court wasted 113 days and said
nothing in the end.

Undemocratic Role Of The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court, on its part, also wasted 50 days and delivered
the ‘fastest Supreme Court judgment in the history of Nigeria’. By
Law including the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act of 2010,
appeals arising from the Presidential Election Tribunal (Court of
Appeal) shall be looked into and determined within 60 days from the
day of delivery of the lower court judgment.

As a matter of fact and strong condemnation, the Supreme Court
deliberately declined until ten days to the expiration of the
constitutional 60 days deadline. Like the mode of the meetings of
‘the Supreme Military Council’ or the ‘Armed Forces Ruling Council’
of Buhari, Babangida and Abacha khaki days, the Nigeria’s Supreme
Court hurriedly sat on 30th Oct 2019 and dismissed the lodged
appeals under less than two hours of the same day.

Apart from its failure to remedy the blunders of the lower court
by way of denial of fair hearing, the Supreme Court also appeared
as if it had impeached the Constitution through a new and strange
‘case-law’ to the effect that henceforth, ‘it is no longer legally
or constitutionally required for those seeking to be elected into
elective public offices including the office of the president to
submit their educational certificates at relevant quarters and have
them publicly and judicially proven or certified’.

By this, the Nigeria’s Supreme Court has broken a world record
of negatively immeasurable standard, where Apes wherever they are
can now vie for any elective public office in the country.

Why Over 90% Of Nigerian Judges Are Victims Of Judicial Career
Suicide
Independently speaking, it is likely safe to say that over 90% of
the serving judges in Nigeria including those of the Supreme Court
and Court of Appeal are victims of judicial career suicide because
they live far above their legitimate incomes or earnings; thereby
making themselves prone or putting themselves at high risk of state
terrorism and other forms of threats and unsafe conditions.

Becoming a serving judge in Nigeria forbids the beneficiary from
engaging in other lawful means of livelihood including practicing
as a private lawyer. They holistically rely on Government by way of
monthly remunerations including basic salaries and litany of
prescribed allowances; all known and tabulated by the Government
including its anti graft and secret service agencies.

That is to say that if a serving judge including a Justice of
Supreme Court or Court of Appeal is found by intelligence reports
or credible suspicions to own developed or undeveloped properties
(immoveable) (i.e. private mansions, oil and gas stations,
industrial farms, student hostels, hotels, built and leased houses
and companies, etc) or movable properties including huge cash
deposits or company shares or multiple domiciliary accounts and
money laundering, etc as well as immovable and movable properties
outside the country; then such a serving Judge or Justice is likely
to be directly or vicariously liable for immorality and corruption
charges, if investigated or questioned or strongly suspected.

Once this is the case, the affected Judge or Justice becomes a
castrated king and does the dirty biddings of his or her
blackmailers or would-be blackmailers including officials of the
present Government of Nigeria. In other words, to find an unstained
and incorruptible serving Judge or Justice in Nigeria is not
totally absent but tough and hard.

Judicial Career suicide includes undermining of fair hearing,
rule of law and democratic principles and processes as well as
legitimizing the illegitimacies and illegalities of Government in
power or its officials through judicial proceedings, orders and
judgments.

For the avoidance of doubt, therefore, the SSS, CCB, EFCC and
ICPC should investigate and compile all liquid and solid
investments or properties of all serving Justices of the Supreme
Court and Court of Appeal in Nigeria and outside the country and
make them public.

Signed:

Intersociety
· Contacts:

Mobile/Whatsapp Line: +2348174090052
Email: [email protected]^[1]
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org