The Judiciary & Believability Crisis by Odiawa Ai

The crisis of believability afflicting the legal executive has negatively affected the institution whose image according to numerous Nigerians is currently battered. It is more appalling that those conveying shame to the bench are the same overseers accused of keeping up with its respectability and prestige. Reestablishing this believability becomes an uphill task when judges deliver judgement that neither resolve contending issues nor gives any clarity. That is the current situation with respect to last week's judgment of the federal high court on the emirate tussle in Kano that has dragged on for weeks. While the court pronounced the appointment of a new emir by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf as invalid, it likewise expressed that the ruling doesn't influence the validity of the Kano Emirates Council (Repeal) Bill 2024, which ejected the former emir.

At the point when senior legal practitioners ponder over the judgment of a court confusing as Barr. Femi Falana, (SAN), has portrayed it or weird and doesn't compliment the adjudicator in the estimation of Professor Auwalu Yadudu, there is a problem. “How can you say the actions taken in pursuant of a law are set aside, and then say you are not delving into the validity of the said law?” Yadudu queried. In any case, Falana is more bothered that the federal high court invalidated two supreme court judgments that limit its powers on the affairs of traditional institutions. It is more upsetting that the National Judicial Commission (NJC) recently intervened on this same matter.

As always repeatedly, the function of law as an instrument of social designing must be made difficult when judges undermine their oath by acts of omission or commission. Also, to the extent that nothing obliterates public trust in the framework than the awful behavior of judges, the legal executive ought to guard its unbiasedness jealously. Regardless of the allurement, this basic arm of government ought not to be unduly politicized.

Apparently bugged by the crisis of believability that has for long hounded the judicial arm of government in Nigeria and the harm it inflicts on public psyche, the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) last year facilitated a crucial Justice Sector Summit which brought together critical stakeholders. The broad consensus was the need to transcend the interests that are keeping down fair and evenhanded justice administration in Nigeria by working to reestablish integrity to the bar and bench. For that to take place, Judges ought to, like Caesar’s wife, stay above suspicion.

While it is standard assumption in the United States from where we borrowed the presidential system of government that Judges be either conservative or liberal, they can't be Republican or Democrat in their votes on legal choices. The former is philosophical, part of the right to hold convictions. The latter involves political partisanship, an area that is beneath the independence and fair-mindedness of the legal executive as everyone’s last stronghold of hope for justice and fairness in a popularity-based republic. Without any such well-established philosophical contrasts in Nigeria, our adjudicators have an even narrower room. As citizens they might have their confidential sectarian inclinations, however such predispositions are not supposed to reflect in their conveyance of Justice or indeed in their social conduct and public utterances.

From adjournments which are most frequently, deliberate acts to the culture of lateness and debasement which denies the institution of its fair-mindedness and fairness, there is a dire need to reestablish integrity to the bar and the bench in Nigeria. We trust the Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC) will be conclusive in managing the Kano emirate quandary before it obliterates whatever is left of legal executive's integrity in Nigeria.