Jury System Will Tackle Problem Of Corrupt Judges —Sagay SAN – TheNigerialawyer

The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against
Corruption, Prof Itse Sagay, SAN, has expressed his support for the
defunct jury system in Nigeria as a solution to the alleged
corruption among judges.

Sagay said this during a one-day roundtable organised by PACAC
in collaboration with the Jury Justice and Rectitude Advocacy
Institute (The Jury Movement) in Abuja on Thursday.

The PACAC chairman, who explained that the jury system
originated in England, stated that, previously, he was not
persuaded that Nigeria needed a jury system after it was abolished
in Lagos in 1976.

Speaking on the theme of the event, ‘Jury Trials in Nigeria and
the Review of the Proposed Jury Service Bill’, he explained that a
judge should be a good arbiter of facts and applier of law, which,
he said, would be swifter.

Sagay, however, noted that a few events in the last five to six
years have changed his mind.

He said, “I think the most outstanding one was a case in which
the defendant before the court was a judge. The judge was accused
of looting, I would say — taking bribes of all sorts and appeared
before another judge.

“Some of the facts were very interesting: N30m was paid by a
counsel appearing before the judge into the judge’s wife’s account
when the case was on. That same counsel, a senior advocate, bought
a brand new car for the son of the judge.

“Several other things: more than $500,000 was found in his
account. He had invested in blue-chip companies, as he called it
with over N90m in one company and N80m in another, and so on.

“We had expected that the judge, who is a defendant, would
explain how he acquired all these properties and why counsel
appearing before him should pay N30m into his wife’s account and
buy the car for his son.”

The anti-graft committee boss stated that “shockingly,” the
judge had said the N30m was paid into the wife’s account and not
into the judge’s account, so there could be no conspiracy
established.

He added, “Secondly, the judge’s daughter was about to be
married and the presiding judge said the money was paid to help the
judge as a contribution to the wedding expenses and that was why it
was paid into the wife’s account.

“As for car bought for the son, the judge said, well, it was
bought for the son and not the judge. For all the other amounts of
money, he said, ‘The judge comes from a wealthy family. He
inherited property.

“He has been in the judiciary for a long time. He goes on
courtesies; those courtesies are paid in dollars. He must have been
saving those amounts of money until they got to more than $500,000,
and so on.”

According to Sagay, the judge became the chief defence counsel
in his judgment.

“That turned me round completely on this issue because it was
clear that judges, as knowledgeable as they are, could no longer be
relied upon to be impartial or objective when they feel the
interests of those in their class is concerned.

“It then occurred to me that the idea of choosing 12 independent
people who, using a random type of method, have no connection to
the matter and represent the ordinary men in society, will come to
the court, listen to the argument.”

However, the reviewer of the Jury Service Bill on the occasion,
Mrs Olufemi Fatunde, argued against the adoption of the jury
system.

According to Fatunde, who is also a former Director of Public
Prosecution of the Federation, cited ethnic bias and the high cost
of housing, feeding and paying the allowances of jurors in an
already financially challenged judicial sector, among several other
factors militating against the jury system in the country.

She said, “I believe that we don’t need it. We have sufficient
legal infrastructure on the ground, which, if we only develop, we
will be able to cope and our system of criminal justice will be
more efficient and effective.

“We don’t need the jury system as of now. The present system
will work well once all stakeholders are effectively sensitised and
they key into it under the Administration of Criminal Justice Act
2015. “