As a result of the Supreme Court’s judgment, Zamfara and Bayelsa states are currently being ruled by a party that was massively rejected by the people...
writes that the Supreme Court did not consider the justice of the case in its judgment on the appeal by Ude Jones Udeogu. The highest court ordered the appellant’s retrial.The Supreme Court, the Apex Court, the last bus stop, is supposed to establish a profound code of conduct for social behaviour and interaction between man and man, man and society and man and government itself. Its judgments are expected to be the embodiment of the highest values in the nation’s social and political culture.
Still on the issue of the court’s new guiding philosophy, Oguntade, JSC further declared that the Supreme Court and indeed all courts in Nigeria had a duty which flowed from a power granted by the Nigerian Constitution to ensure that citizens of Nigeria, high and low, get the justice which their case deserves. He continued thus:
Fortunately, the Seventh National Assembly appreciated this destructive blight on our Criminal Justice System and in 2015, passed a Law deliberately targeted at eliminating it from the System. By subsection 396 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015: How can the highest court of the land, spring out a technicality to inflict such a terrible wound on our criminal justice system? Should the Supreme Court not be using all its knowledge, power and authority to ensure that looters of public funds be brought to justice? Should the Supreme Court not use all its intellectual resources to promote transparency, accountability, integrity in public life and punishment for crimes against the people? What message was the court sending out to the Nigerian...
The court has for some time now laid down as guiding principle that it is more interested in substance than in mere form. Justice can only be done if the substance of the matter is examined. Reliance on technicalities leads to injustice.Care must be taken always, not to sacrifice justice on the alter of technicalities. The time is no more, when disputes are dealt with rather on technicalities and not on merit.
It was contended that invoking the general principle ubi ius ibi remedium is a clear demonstration that appellants have left the Court at large to devise a remedy. I have already stated that the writ of summons and the statement of claim sufficiently disclose that the claim can be founded under the Torts Law.
All the legal justifications adduced for this shocking decision hold no water. Section 238 of the Constitution which deals with the powers of the President to appoint a Judge of the Court of Appeal is irrelevant to this case. Nothing in the case at the High Court level contradicted that authority. Section 396 of the ACJA did not breach any section of the Constitution because there is no section of the Constitution prohibiting a newly promoted judge from completing a case he has almost completed at the High Court. Such learning exhibited by the court should have been directed towards the opposite end.
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