Retired Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad, while giving a valedictory speech upon his retirement from the Supreme Court, raised some compelling and pertinent issues around our judiciary and its role in administering justice.
Recently, I had written somewhere that the judiciary remains the only problem of the country, and I had barely finished writing when responses started coming countering that position. Some of those responses were so ridiculous that my submission was understood to mean that all I was saying was that all the problems in the society are to be attributed or blamed only on the judiciary. Hell no!
Could I have been saying that our corruption-ladden society or the failure of governance or rising cases of ritual killings or increasing cost of living are all caused by the judiciary? Certainly not, but imagine if in this country that justice is administered without fear or favour or that the full weight of the law is brought to bear on any law breaker, if our society will not be better for it.
It is not for nothing that the Judiciary, the world over, is regarded as the last hope of the common man. This presupposes that it is the only place the common man can get justice! Where dispute arises, and parties can not settle it between themselves, they resort to the Courts for redress. Imagine a society without the judiciary. Imagine man returning to the state of nature; a state where only the strong gets justice. A society without rules, politics, or government. In this state, the people are free to do what they please with no defined duties or obligations. The judiciary, in other words, should protect the weak from the strong; the poor from the rich.
Can we safely say today, that the poor can access justice, or that a poor man stands a chance against a rich man in any contestation or disputation should they approach the court for adjudication? If you doubt this submission can you explain how it is that Ahmad Lawan is in the Senate and not Bashir Machina?
It is from this standpoint that the judiciary derives its nobility and respect. If it fails to uphold that high rectitude expected of it then it has nobody but itself to blame when people begin to cast aspersions and doubts on its integrity and nobility. It is not enough to tell the people to respect judges and their judgments, the judges themselves must give the people reason to respect them. They must earn that respect through their fair and above board conducts and behaviours. Anything outside that will be foolhardy, to put it mildly.
This for me, is the import behind the treatise of Justice Dattijo. That if the judiciary wants to be respected, it must earn it.
Justice Dattijo was direct and convincing in talking about corruption and nepotism in the judiciary, the depletion of the membership of the apex court and its impact on justice and equity and abuse of the Office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria.
Justice Dattijo accused the CJN of abuse of office and dictatorial practices. He lamented the depleted number of Supreme Court justices, stressing that with his retirement, the Supreme Court has only 10 members from the maximum number of 21 in 2020. He called on the CJN to fill those vacant seats because that falls within his purview to do so. It goes without saying that having the full complement of judges will not only reduce the burden on the remaining 10 but also expedite the process of the dispensation of justice, because as they say, justice delayed is justice denied. It will also ensure the necessary diversity of positions on issues of justice or national interests.
He also lamented that the south-east and north-central are now unrepresented at the court.
Hear him: “As presently structured, the CJN is Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) which oversees both the appointment and discipline of judges. He is equally Chair of the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC), the National Judicial Institute (NJI), the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee (LPPC) that appoints Senior Advocates of Nigeria.
“In my considered opinion, the oversight functions of these bodies should not rest on an individual alone. A person with absolute powers, it is said, corrupts easily and absolutely. As Chair of NJC, FJSC, NJI and LPPC, appointments as council, board and committee members are at his pleasure. He neither confers with fellow justices nor seeks their counsel or input on any matter related to these bodies. He has both the final and the only say. The CJN has power to appoint 80 percent of members of the council and 60 percent of members of FJSC. The same applies to NJI and LPPC. Such enormous powers are effortlessly abused. This needs to change. Continued denial of the existence of this threatening anomaly weakens effective judicial oversight in the country.”
Justice Dattijo’s lamentations on the problem of nepotism in the judiciary was not new neither will anybody pretend not to know that a situation where judges influence the appointment of their children and relatives as judges will impinge the integrity of the judiciary. As was the case recently where the current CJN supervised and conducted the process of swearing in his son as a judge. How can the CJN convince anybody that he was fair to all, especially those who are not as privileged as his son? Given the enormous powers the CJN wields, who would have dared to deny his son such an appointment?
Justice Dattijo said the practice of justices and judges swearing in their children and relatives as judges and magistrates is one of the dark spots in the judiciary.
He also lamented the skewed remuneration where the gap between the CJN and his colleagues is like that between heaven and earth. Another dimension of corruption which the learned jurist mentioned is that the increasing budgetary allocations to the NJC have not been transparently spent for the benefit of the judiciary.
Who, therefore, was Justice Dattijo speaking to? Was anybody listening and prepared to look at these disturbing issues dispassionately, or are we going to seek the head of the messenger while ignoring the import of the message?
Perhaps an analogy of the problem of Nigerian football referees will suffice here. From a nation where Nigerian referees ranked amongst the best in Africa and the world, we have now found ourselves in a situation where when a roll of 200 referees are assembled in Africa you will not find a single Nigerian. Similarly, Nigerian judges were considered some of the finest around the world in the past, now can we say the same today?
As Justice Dattijo said, the CJN is too powerful as he is saddled with too many responsibilities and so he is prone to be corrupt. Is this not an honest and fair assessment of that office? If so, should we not do something about that before our judges, many of whose judgements have left many ordinary people wondering if they indeed have any wisdom at all, inadvertently force those seeking justice to take recourse to self help rather than going to court where they are not guaranteed justice. If the CJN is found wanting in his capacity as head of the judiciary then what hope is there for that institution?
