Judiciary Must Be Free from Executive Arbitrariness, Dominance, NBA Insists
Victor Ogunje
The Ado Ekiti Branch of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), has advocated for total independence of Nigeria’s judiciary from executive arm of the government in order to save the country’s democracy.
The NBA posited that it is wrong for executive to be the appointing authority for judges and magistrates, which conferred on it powers to stifle and control the judiciary with impunity.
The Chairman of NBA, Ado Ekiti Branch, Mr. Adeyemi Adewumi, said this yesterday in Ado Ekiti at the commencement of the Law Week 2022 with the theme: “Judicial Independence, a Recipe for True Democracy in Nigeria.”
Adewumi hinged the fight for judicial independence on the premise that the judiciary should not be controlled or manipulated by other arms of government in order to avert systemic failure and collapse.
He said: “Judicial independence means that judges and magistrates must be free to exercise their judicial powers without fear, favour and interference from litigants, state, which doubles as its appointing authority, media or other powerful individuals or institutions, including multinational and high net worth companies.
“For the judiciary to be truly independent, it is considered that judges must be free to discharge their responsibilities not minding whose ox is gored or pandering to the sentimental dictates of their statutory appointers, as judges are appointed by the executive subject to recommendation by National Judicial Council (NJC).
“In a country like Nigeria, which is presently characterised by economic underdevelopment, it is generally considered constitutionally desirable that institutional separation of judiciary from other arms of government is a necessary bulwark against all forms of political and social tyranny, victimisation and oppression.”
Adewumi also said that “we had seen a situation here in Ekiti State where NJC recommended judges for appointment and the executive stopped it and it took the coming of another government and NBA’s intervention to get it done.”
He added that that the NBA would send a memo to the National Assembly to amend the constitution to give the NJC more powers in the appointment of our judges.
“Judiciary will never be functional and independent as long as the executive ratifies their appointments and release funds for their operations.
“We have heard from chief judges of states saying that the allocation they got from governments could not pay the salaries of judges let alone putting up infrastructures. Why should we have an environment like that? We will continue to have problems with this situation.
“If you see the vehicles being used by some of our judges, you will pity them. We are saying that it is high time we allowed the judiciary to be truly independent.
“Judiciary should be allowed to be financially independent. Why should judiciary runs to the executive if it wants to buy an ordinary key? We are saying this must stop,” the NBA chairman said.
Adewumi also advised the state lawmakers to expeditiously look into the harmonised proposed amendments of 1999 Constitution that is pending before the House of Assembly in all the states across the nation in the interest of the Nigerian masses and their wellbeing.
