Body Of Senior Advocates Calls For Constitutional Court Ahead Of 2023 Election

The Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (BOSAN), has called for a Constitutional Court which will have unlimited jurisdiction to determine all cases relating to or connected with interpretation of the 1999 Constitution, Enforcement of fundamental rights of the citizens, determination as to whether any person has been lawfully elected into any office from the president, to the state governors and members of all the legislative houses.

The Constitutional Court was allowed in the 1995 constitution under which former Head of State, Sani Abacha ruled the country.

Adegboyega Awomolo SAN made the call on behalf of the SANs on Monday during the 2022/2023 Legal Year Ceremony of the Federal High Court Headquarters, Abuja.

He said that the proposed Constitutional court should be established because the Federal High Court is overstretched with so many cases, resulting in normal cases inevitably suffering adjournment thereby frustrating “good and urgent causes.”

“With all humility, we have reached a stage when very urgently, the Parliament, Judiciary and stakeholders in the administration of Justice should consider establishment of National Constitutional Court of Nigeria. The Constitutional Court is one that will handle all constitutional, political and election matters. It will be a Federal Court, of the status of a High Court with divisions in all the states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

“The Court will be like the National Industrial Court of Nigeria that exercises jurisdiction on matters related to employment and other industrial matters.

“All the decisions of the court will appeallable to the Court of Appeal and all appeals ends at the Court of Appeal.

“There will no longer be the need to take away about 500 judges from their normal court responsibilities to sit on Election Tribunals all over the country. We have enough human resources to serve the Court in all capacity,” Awomolo said.

He made reference to the 1995 constitution of Nigeria, promulgated by the Federal Military Government under General Sani Abacha which partly reads in Section 250 that ” Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Constitutional Court shall have “original jurisdiction” touching on FG, states and LG disputes, and all arms of government.

Awomolo argued that it was a grave error that General Abdul Salami who ended the military governance in Nigeria did not establish the Constitutional Court in the 1999 constitution.

“My Lords, there exists Constitutional courts in many countries of the world where such jurisdiction as proposed function effectively to relieve regular courts of political parties. For example, countries like India, South Africa , South Korea , Egypt , Zambia , Ireland, Spain , Portugal , Italy and Germany.

“In all these countries, records are available to show that Constitutional Courts have become a solution enhances jurisprudence, specialization and promotion of political stability through judicial interventions,” Awomolo proposed.

He appreciated the ingenuity of the judges to preside over pre-election matters in a short time.

He added, “This court, by reason of the new Electoral Act 2022, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, in February 2022, the Federal High Court is the designated the exclusive court to resolve all political causes and matters arising from the political parties’ constitution and their guidelines, the Electoral Act 2022 and relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended). In all matters relating to party primaries, nomination of candidates and the exercise of power by INEC under the provisions of Electoral Act 2022.

“My Lords, we were told that the pre-election related cases filed before this court was 1,838 by almost all the political parties. The dockets of the designated courts were so overwhelmed that the Chief Judge was obliged to give specific time frame to dispose of the cases and that resulted in 1,280 cases concluded, 553 of the cases are still being worked on to be concluded.”