USA Africa Dialogue Series - Removal of judges: Appraising the omen from

Removal of judges: Appraising the omen from Judiciary KAYODE KETEFE The Nigerian Judiciary of recent has been constituted into a great anvil that is braving the acerbic hammer of severe criticisms. Recent developments which have contributed to dwindling public confidence in the hitherto ostensibly sacred organ included the saga of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Iyorgher Katsina-Alu and the former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa salami. There are also the cases of James Ibori and Charles Okah with their "freed at home jailed abroad" syndrome. Then we have the recent case of John Yusuf, a former director in the police pension office, who was convicted of having stolen N32 billion pensions fund and sentenced to two year imprisonment with the option to pay N750, 000 in total expiation of the crime. All these, among others, had fostered public disenchantment with the Judiciary. Just an hour after the National Judicial Council (a body charged with the responsibility of appointment and discipline of judicial officers) announced the removal from the Bench of two justices, (Justice Thomas D Naron and Justice Charles Archibong) last Thursday, a friend asked me if the development was a good or bad omen for the Judiciary. Upon reflection, I realised the question was not as easy as it first appeared. Ordinarily, the issue of removal of judges should be a rare occurrence considering its delicate nature and far-reaching consequences. But this would only make sense if the system is healthy to start with. For example in the last one hundred years, only one judge has been found guilty of corruption and removed from the Bench in United Kingdom. In the last 250 years, only 8 federal judges have been removed from office in United States. These seven justices were John Pickering, West Hughes Humphreys, Robert W. Archbald, Halsted L. Ritter, Harry E. Claiborne, Alcee Hastings, Walter Nixon and Thomas Porteous.  On the other hand, in Nigeria, there has been nothing less than 25 judges indicted, compulsorily retired or removed outright from the bench in the last 20 years! The list of Nigerian judges who had been removed from office or retired abruptly before the mandatory age of retirement included a former judge of the Lagos High Court, Justice Adebayo Manuwa; a former judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja, Justice Chukwuemeka Nwaogwugwu; a former Chief judge of the Abia State High Court, Justice Kalu Amah. Others included former Justice Wilson Egbo-Egbo of the Federal High Court; and a former judge of the Enugu State High Court, Justice Stanley Nnaji. Yet, in spite of the above comparatively high number of indicted judges, the NJC has attracted criticism of conservatism and lethargy. There has been a belief that the NJC has not particularly been active on the issue of discipline of judicial officers.   NJC is seen to be overly cautious about taking punitive measures against judicial personnel in order not to give impression to the public that the Judiciary is corrupt. People do wonder what the number would have been if Council has not been liberal. Truly, removal of judges from the bench usually gives rise to two basic questions both relating to the reliability of the judicial system. First is the question of integrity -, a system where judges are often removed from the bench may be perceived as been riddled with corruption; on the other hand, frequent weeding out of the bad eggs from the bench may be seen as salutary cleansing to make the judiciary healthy. The second question relates to the issue of politicisation - removal or discipline of judges by the executives (in apparent invocation of the principles of checks and balances) often makes enlightened people somewhat uncomfortable. Question may be asked whether or not the removal is in the best interest of the nation or whether it is political. Furthermore, discipline of judicial officers is a two-edged sword. Do it in the right way and for the right reason and an ethical institution in whom people could repose confidence would evolve; do it the wrong way and you would end up having a cowed judicial personnel who would be too fearful to exercise unfettered discretion. Thus, the discipline of judges is a delicate and serious affair. Nonetheless, continual vigilance to ascertain purity of the system should be non-negotiable. This is because in Nigeria today, we have judges who engage in judicial rascality by giving bizarre ex parte injunctions and questionable judgments. We have judges who are beholden to some "higher authorities" in the forms of top member of the executives, political juggernauts or secret cult potentates. Sadly too, we have judges, though very few, who collect bribes. To cleanse the system, NJC should overcome its proverbial inertia borne of reluctance to rock the boat.  An objective and rational approach would be to insist that judicial integrity should not be compromised for whatever reason. NJC itself needs restructuring, though, to make it more dynamic and efficient. The composition of the body needs to be tinkered with to ensure that no one in the council is too powerful to influence its decisions.   .

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.