Lawyers Ask NJC To Investigate Justice Lifu Over Party Deregistration

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LAGOS –  Mike Ahamba (SAN), Mal­achy Ugwumadu, a lawyer and former national pres­ident of Committee for Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), and Chuks Nwa­chuku, a lawyer and former presidential candidate, have stressed the importance of the National Judicial Coun­cil (NJC) investigating the action of Justice Peter Lifu in respect of the deregistra­tion of five political parties, as it affects the nation’s de­mocracy.

Ahamba told Daily Inde­pendent that the issue was disturbing, stressing that de­mocracy cannot thrive with­out the rule of law.

“When in the course of the rule of law we become unruly, then there’s no way democracy can thrive. I know that the Independent Nation­al Electoral Commission (INEC) has power to dereg­ister under Section 225A of the constitution. There’s a matter pending in court and the Court of Appeal made an order. If a lower court dis­obeyed that order to continue to make its own order and or­der deregistering.

“I hope that the NJC won’t ignore the situation. Because as far as I’m concerned, the ace is in the hands of the legal profession, both bench and bar, to sustain democra­cy in this country. This is my humble belief. It’s an unfortu­nate thing. All the parties say they’ve passed all those rules. The important thing now is that if anybody has anything to say about it, he should have gone to court to say it. Not when the court says, suspend action, then a judge goes to say you’re talking rubbish. I think that’s why the Court of Appeal that described it as judicial rascality, which is a very good expression. I hope that the NJC won’t ignore sanctioning this particular judge. This indiscipline must stop.”

Ugwumadu noted that judges must be very careful in handling political cases.

“A very cardinal pillar of our judicial system is the need for fair hearing. The only thing that became ap­parent, perhaps inadvertent­ly on the part of Justice Lifu, was the fact that the Court of Appeal had intervened in the same manner and given a future date to deal with the matter. So for him to now become seised of the same matter and dealt with it in the manner that he did wasn’t the best in the circumstance. I mean, we as lawyers know that once the Court of Ap­peal is seised with the facts of the matter, particularly when there has been a prop­er notice of appeal and that transmission of records and it has been entered, that word entered would mean that the Court of Appeal had become completely seised, complete­ly taken over the matter. The lower court simply hands off.

“So if those facts were to his knowledge, and he has all of those details and still went ahead in that circumstance, you know as it is, the judges don’t talk. I’m simply trying to know whether there were reasons why he acted the way he did. But by and large, you’ll see that whether Lifu or other judges, the activi­ties of the judex in relation to one conflicting judgment, two inappropriate orders and all that has become a very serious embarrassment and concern, even to the public.

“I’ve often made the point that the notion of justice itself doesn’t take a flight when you win or lose a case. It evaporates when the or­dinary man, simple people, not lawyers, not space engi­neers, not doctors ordinary people, when they no longer understand what is going on. On the one hand, the Court of Appeal says, leave this matter as a Superior In­termediate Court will deal with it at a future date. Then you, from where the appeal arose, take an action that un­dermines that hierarchy of judicial power. In the same way, even in the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal cannot do anything. So it’s in the light of that, that the outcry has become serious. If you consider the sweep­ing effect, it’s precisely why judges must also be careful. Because they’ve been admon­ished to stay away as much as they can from political cases. They’re usually con­troversial and convoluted. The way the judiciary is con­figured, they’re a specialised breed. If there are concerns in relation to the functions of their office in the discharge of your duties, you must go to the NJC to deal with it. That has played out in a couple of cases in which judicial offi­cers were involved. So, the NJC will investigate this as well.”

Nwachukwu emphasised the unfortunate situation in which the court is giving pre­mium to the outcome of elec­tion rather than the process.

He stressed that NJC will investigate what led to Jus­tice Lifu’s action, stressing that Nigeria’s democracy must be protected to avoid a state of anarchy.

According to him, the court places more weight on protecting the outcome of the election than on protect­ing the process that brought about that outcome, stressing that it’ll affect the confidence of the average citizen in the judiciary.

He said, “NJC will want to get into the bottom of Justice Lifu’s conduct. What he did hasn’t been done. All lawyers are taking it for granted that it can never happen. It’s a big challenge on the whole judicial setup. I’ve never seen where the higher courts in this country have ever for­given a situation where a lower court acted to thwart its own orders. This deregis­tration went straight into the heart of the process, trying to throw the whole nation into confusion overnight.

“It’s something that even the Supreme Court is very cautious to do, assuming this matter goes to the Su­preme Court. The Supreme Court will be very cautious late in the day to deregister a party on which platform you have a very major opposition candidate. Nobody will want to do that kind of thing. You cannot do it without people believing that you did it in or­der to rig the election before the election. That’s why you want to pull the rug from un­der his feet. That’s what any reasonable person would be­lieve.”

He added, “It doesn’t mat­ter how much law you cite, be­cause this whole thing is not about citing law and saying that people don’t understand or whatever. Any justice that a reasonable man doesn’t understand is injustice. The test of justice is the opinion of the average reasonable man on the street. That is not the law that the judge is citing, because inside of each and every reasonable person is what is called the idea of justice. There’s nobody who doesn’t have that sense of what justice is, something that if done to him, he would know that injustice has been done to him. He knows that it cannot be done to another person.

“This whole process, INEC was supposed to an­nounce the parties that are going to contest the election. INEC has done it. So why are you coming at this time and saying you want to deregister because of previous whatev­er?

“Deregistration is not automatic. Even where, you seem to think all those things that they mentioned there seem to exist. Those things are factors that INEC will put into consideration in decid­ing whether a party should be deregistered or not.

“So it’s not sufficient that the party hasn’t won an elec­tion. Before you can proceed, the party must have breached the condition.

“It’s INEC that has the power to deregister a party, not the court, it says INEC shall have power, not that the court shall have power to pronounce, declare a party no longer existing. No such power has been given to the court.”