Of Judicial Rascality and the Way Forward

By Shafi Bolakale

Perhaps, no time in history has her hallowed institutions been this degraded. Corruption has been perceived as being the Nigerian Judiciary. The good, intellectual and well versed judicial officers of impeccable character and integrity are nowhere to be found. The growing problem of conflicting judgments has driven away from the uprightness and integrity that ought to reflect in this institution.

Of all this rascality, the government’s strong-arm tactics have influenced its performance as a fearless and impartial arbiter. The last hope of the common man has been humiliated by the state authoritarianism, which has been abruptly stripped of his immunity without recourse to the provisions of the law, where will the common man run to?

The state machinery has fallen to the proletarian times of outright disregard and disobedience of subsisting court orders and falling the standard of the rule of law. The enthronement of anarchy in disregard to the decisions of the court has remained relevant over decades.

The Apex Court emphasised this, in the case of GOVERNOR LAGOS STATE V. OJUKWU, where it opined that: 

"If the Government treats Court order with levity and contempt, the confidence of the citizen in the Courts will be seriously eroded and the effect of that will be the beginning of anarchy in replacement of the rule of law. If anyone should be wary of the orders of the Court it is the authorities; for they, more than anyone else, need the application of the rule of law to govern properly and effectively.”

It is beyond controversy that this practice of the so-called tranny executives, of picking and choosing which order or directive of the courts it would comply with has been the focal point undermining the rule of law and socio-political stability of the nation. As all governments of the day are bound by the final decision of the Apex Court on all electoral matters, so also should every authority, entity, and agency slavishly comply with subsisting orders and directives of any court of law. 

The Judiciary should therefore be bold to checkmate the excesses of the executive and legislative. Likewise, the duo should also do the same for another, in adherence to the doctrine of Baron de Montesquieu. And not directly or indirectly interfering in their decision, as to what we have obtained in recent times.

This takes me to the wordings of the late learned silk, KAYODE ESO, according to him: “Like judicial activism, people who are not knowledgeable enough regarding both judicial activism and legal activism as legal rascality. That may be because when well-constructed, strong advocates are usually not the passive ones as only strong Judges, not Kabiyesi interpreters of the law live forever.”

Barely years ago, an outstanding, courageous, erudite common law jurist, Lord Akin, cherishingly rumbled the ever-immutable dictum:

"In this country (England) amid the clash of arms, the laws are not silent. They speak the same language in war as in peace. It has always been one of the pillars of freedom, one of the principles of liberty for the ich on the recent authority we are now fighting, that the judges are no respecter of persons and stand between the subject and any attempted encroachment on his liberty by the executive, alert to see that any coercive action is justified by law.”

To eliminate and not alleviate these shameful practices within the judiciary, we must begin to consider a judicial Ombudsman framework that will be tasked with the responsibility of inquiring into complaints from court users. As there are whistle-blowing policies in executive administration there should also be such policy in place in the judiciary.

Unlike in the other arms of government where officers found to be corrupt could be punished, suspended, and allowed to resume their duties, there should be no middle ground or space on the Bench for those found to be partial and corrupt as they are unworthy arbiters of truth. There should therefore be zero tolerance for judicial corruption or misconduct.

Once we can get the appointment of judicial officers right, provide adequate funding, shun and uproot greedy and corrupt officials, and finally guarantee non-interference with the duties and roles of the Judiciary, the Judiciary will be on an upward trajectory in guaranteeing true democracy in the nation and the hope of a common man shall lives immemorial.

An incorruptible judge must therefore remain fearless in administering justice, regardless of the potent fangs from any executive agency or body. Justice they say is three-way traffic, the plaintiff, defendant, and society at large, whose eyes and hearing are the judiciary itself. When the institution bastardized, where would be the hope of the common man?

Shafi Bolakale, a 300level law student from Usmanu Danfodiyo, University Sokoto.