FOLLOWING a stinging rebuke of the quality of Judgments coming from the Court of Appeal, by the Supreme Court, judicial stakeholders are expressing worries about the future of the apex court, tribuneonlineng report.
Sunday Tribune understands that the top Bench, since the return to civil rule, has been sourcing its judicial personnel, mainly from the intermediate Bench.
But on Friday, while reversing the sacking of three governors by the Court of Appeal, the apex court descended on the lower court and berated the quality of its interpretation of the law in political cases.
In reversing the Court of Appeal’s judgment that removed Governor Caleb Muftwang of Plateau State, Justices Helen Ogunwumiju and Adamu Jauro excoriated the appelate court for shifting the burden of proof on the governor.
“It was very wrong for the Court of Appeal to go into the issue of party congresses.
To make matters worse, the party challenging the issue is another political party,” Ogunwumiju remonstrated.
A subsisting Supreme Court precedent in Akeredolu v Jegede says even if a party contravene its rule in picking its candidates, other parties can’t challenge the process, because it remains the internal affair of the affected party.
In the same Plateau matter, Justices Emma Agim and Inyang Okoro, further piled on the error of the Court of Appeal in sacking the governor, with Agim tellingly saying “the legal profession should wake up.”
Obviously mourning National Assembly and Plateau House of Assembly members sacked by the Court of Appeal on the same wrong premises used in sacking the governor, Justice Okoro said, “My only worry is that a lot of people have suffered as a result of the Court of Appeal’s decision.
It was absolutely wrong.”
The Court of Appeal is the final arbiter in National and House of Assembly polls.
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