By Prince A.S. Abimbola
I must say up front that I am in support of the autonomy of the judiciary as it ensures better administration of justice in our society.
However, the lockdown of the courts has done injustice to several people and it is still doing more. There certainly has to be a better way to deal with the matter. I bet if this industrial action was done during the time of the presidential elections or during the general governorship elections, the government’s approach would have been different. Certainly, our courts will not be shut for this length of time.
The approach of Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) should have been more strategic such that better results would be gotten in a short while. Presently, all major stakeholders can afford to go to sleep save for the society and lawyers who are at the losing end. Several citizens are languishing in detention facilities across the country and no court to grant bail or determine their causes. Some lawyers are mainly in litigation and suddenly they woke to see that the courts are shut down. We can ask the question, who are the ones affected by this action? Certainly it is not the ones that the JUSUN wants to act that are directly affected. So is the action going to ultimately get the desired result?
We have further plunged our already damaged society into further abyss. I beckon on to the leadership of JUSUN to re-strategize and choose a better and more effective approach to resolve this issue.
I am aware that JUSUN has two valid judgments in their hands that can be executed. If more thoughts and resources are geared towards the execution of the judgments, perhaps it will bring to the fore a better sense of direction to this matter. As at present, the action is doing a lot of harm to the society. I am personally of the opinion that the courts should not be totally shut down, that is the third arm of government. We need to use a different approach. This kind of action should come at a more strategic time to get the needed result in the shortest possible time.
Lawyers and jurists have copiously cited sections 81 (1) and 123 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which guarantees financial autonomy to the judiciary and when the government failed to implement this autonomy, JUSUN and Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, had at some point sued the government in two different cases at the Federal High Court, where both cases were won.
And following this judgments, the Federal Government complied when the President issued the Executive Order 10, which authorised the Accountant General of the Federation to deduct the fund standing to the credit of the judiciary in the consolidated revenue of each state. At this point, the action was challenged by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).
Following from the above, it could be seen that these are serious constitutional issues that will require monumental strides to be taken and great changes to be realised. The issue is not only constitutional, it is fiscal and it will require more than just a strike to resolve it.
And the earlier it is recognised that an industrial action is just one way to get attention, and not the end of the matter itself, then the more strategic that industrial action would be.
Prince A.S. Abimbola, Ologun Abire I of Opada Town, Egbe City, Yagba West LGA, Kogi State is a legal practitioner based in Lagos.
