Conflicting judgments are big problem for the judiciary, says Onoja

The issue of courts of coordinate jurisdictions churning out conflcting decisions on similar matters has always occurred in the judiciary. While citizens complain and request for streamlining of judgments, it appears efforts to resolve the issue are yet to bear fruit as recent court decisions in respect of the chairmanship of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) show. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Ogwu James Onoja, spoke on this and concluded that such a development is not good for the judiciary. He also spoke on the process of selecting a new Chief Justice of Nigeria among others in this interview with OLUDARE RICHARDS.

What is your view about the problem of conflicting judgments among courts of coordinate jurisdiction?
The issue of conflicting judgments are big problem for the judiciary. In most instances, we have conflicting judgments from different divisions of the courts. Conflicting judgments are not good for the interest of the Courts. It brings out the issue of lack of synergy between the different judicial divisions of the Courts. It is now high time they had their own law report.

It is also very important for them to share ideas, especially in the judgment of other courts. The problem actually is that some of the cases don’t go to the Supreme Court, if not, the apex court has the power to bring them in line with what is the judicial authority at any point in time. Some of the cases ought not to go to the Supreme Court, like the one of Kogi East. The matter has gone to the Supreme Court and we are waiting to see whether jurisdiction will be denied because all the appeals from senatorial position ought to have terminated at the Court of Appeal.

Do you support the idea of appointing a Chief Justice of Nigeria outside justices of the Supreme Court?
The law is that the President on the recommendations of the National Judicial Council (NJC) can appoint a qualified legal practitioner of 15 years and above to be a Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN). So, the recommendation must be made by the NJC, to the President and then the President will appoint. There is no law stopping the NJC from appointing outside the Supreme Court.

But by the tradition, which has been very consistent for more than 50 years, it always goes to the senior member of the juries. Normally, three justices are recommended and out of the three, one will be picked by the President, who will send the name to the Senate for confirmation.All along, the presidency has been very consistent that the most senior justice gets appointed, so we are surprised about the present controversy, where people are suggesting appointment from outside the judiciary, even suggesting that it should not be based on seniority.My opinion is that that is an attempt to bring the Judiciary into crisis, as we are experiencing in the National Assembly and as it has been the fate of the Executive for so many years. So, for the purpose of peace, for the purpose of merit, seniority counts.

The most senior in the Supreme Court now is Justice Walter Onnoghen. He is a man of integrity, he has everything to become CJN. What is being said especially in the press are mere politics.If it happens that Justice Onnoghen is bypassed and someone else is picked below him or from outside the judiciary, it will implant a kind of distrust or mistrust and I don’t think that is appropriate in the era we are now, where we need cohesion and reformation in the Judiciary. When a man that is qualified has done nothing wrong and has all it takes to become the CJN and is bypassed, its unjust. Why should politicians now start campaigning for bypassing such person? To me, it is politics and it should not be allowed to happen.

What is the implication of such bypass, if it happens?
If it is politicized, what is happening in the National Assembly now will happen. What is happening in the Executive will happen. There will be no cohesion and there will be lawlessness and impunity. Remember, the judicial officers, by nature of their job, are supposed to be people of integrity. They are people we are all supposed to have confidence in. We can’t have politicians on the bench, because if we now turn it into the issue of politics, where for example, it is the person the President wants that should be appointed, who has however not gone through the rudiments of judicial ladder, that means any lawyer, whether a politician or not, can be appointed from the bar to head the Supreme Court.

That means, when the PDP man comes, for example, he would remove the sitting CJN and put his own person, then the position of the judiciary will not be in the good interest of the masses. Even in those civilized countries where they appoint judges, there is a tenure of office, but we are not ripe for that kind of system here.The issue now is this: why for the last 50 years, we’ve been following the seniority tradition, we suddenly want to change it now? They have not been able to give a cogent reason for why we should deviate from the norm and the precedent that has been set, which has been that the most senior person on the bench at the Supreme Court should take the position.

What is your take on the importance of the role of the Judicial Service Commission and the NJC in the selection process?
If you look at the Judiciary itself, the JSC and the NJC, they don’t have any problem. They are ready to recommend the most senior persons to the president and they are the people who know of those that posses the integrity and qualification. They know each other; they know themselves and I know they are going to recommend the two or three most senior justices to the President.

So, it falls on the President to pick the most senior person as long as that person has done nothing wrong and has no issues with the judiciary or on his performance as a judicial officer. They have the biggest role to play. There is cohesion in the institutions you mentioned and they are ready to recommend the most senior person. Those making noise about the selection process are outsiders; they are politicians, trying to politicise the process. Theywant to bring the judiciary down. We, as lawyers and stakeholders, who have the interest of justice in this country at heart, should not succumb to the politicization of the judiciary.

What is your view of the rate of unemployment, the future of newly called lawyers and the options available to them?
We need to do something quickly about our legal practice, if not; we are going to lose it. Training from the university to the law school has become suspicious in recent times, in terms of the lawyers that are graduating. As an employer of lawyers, I have seen lawyers who finished from law school who cannot write letters correctly and cannot draft affidavits and cannot even speak good English language.

Though, there are some very good ones, a lot are half-baked lawyers. We need to look critically at what the medical profession is doing when it comes to training of their doctors. There is a minimum requirement for admission into the medical school and then to start practicing. There is also a general examination conducted by West African School of Surgeons, for example. From the 200 level, that exam can be taken and a certain class score must be attained before you can move ahead. At the end of the day, it is difficult to find mediocrity in medical practice. But in the legal profession,we find people who went to the University and law school and you wonder how they passed. It is because we refused to set a standard for the legal practice.

There should be a required standard for graduation. We need to start looking at these issues so we can begin to remove those who are not cut out for practice in law, because we have a situation now where someone from law school, when asked to prepare an affidavit, cannot do it. Meanwhile, legal and the medical practices require competence and integrity. A doctor, who reeks of mediocrity can kill a patient. Also, a legal practitioner, who is not properly trained or cut out for the job can send a person to jail. There can be a lot of errors.

As doctors deal with lives, the legal practitioner also deals with supposed liberty and also life, because, if you don’t handle a matter of crime punishable with death properly, the man can also be killed. It is now time to take a look at the curricular of the University and the law school, especially and raise the standard in terms of the attainable minimum for admission and practice. So, it is not about the volume of practitioners, being churned out because these days, we find so many lawyers coming out and going into fashion designing and even farming. We need to start separating those that are competent, byidentifying them from the university and the law school. The standards need to be raised in all parameters.