A former Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Monday Ubani, has called on those in positions of authority to especially in government agencies to endeavour to obey Court orders.
Mr Ubani gave this advise while Speaking exclusively to TVC News on the Contempt of Court order given by a Federal High Court in Abuja against the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa.
Mr Ubani said the decision exposes the contradiction in government where most agencies flatly refuse to obey Court orders or even respond to Court proceedings.
He said Nigerians will have the same orientation to Court orders or proceedings for as long as those in positions of authority refuse to follow the law.
He added that the response from the EFCC that the agency is appealing its Chairman’s committal for contempt does not amount to a Stay of Execution of the judgment and should not be seen as such in any instance.
He said the best thing to do is for the commission through its chairman to obey the order and then appeal for a Stay of Execution.
He said until that is done, intention to appeal cannot be a Stay of execution of the judgment.
He added that continuing the trend will amount to nothing but disrespect for the third arm of government which is the Judiciary.
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“This is clearly the head of development in our judicial system. When a court makes an order, that order needs to be obeyed by every person. That order is affected. If you recall the background of this case, this was a decision of the Court as far back as 2018, when an individual at the EFCC brought before the Court was discharged and appealed by that Court.
And the Court made a consequential order that his 40 million Naira that was actually taken away from him as a result of the criminal charge should be returned back, including his car, now in 2018, and we are now in 2022.
I’m not too sure that that judgment was appealed against. And up to now, that judgment has not been complied with by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission. And who is heading at the Commission that is supposed to be the one to be responsible for the obedience to the Court order.
So, having failed to respect the Court order, an application for contempt proceeding was filed that was unnoticed, meaning that they were served, and I don’t think they responded to that application. And then what happened today was that the Court considered the fact that was made available by the by the applicant and then had to go ahead and convict the EFCC chairman for contempt of the Court.
Contempt of the Court for the sake of those who may not understand what it means that if a court makes a ruling on order or a judgment and makes proper directives concerning what should be obeyed, that judgment of the Court ought to be obeyed or must be obeyed. Now, if you fail, refuse, or neglect to obey at all, that you are really in contempt of the Court. Okay? As it is now, the Court has convicted him.
Well, appeal does not operate as a stay I understand that the IG was directed to ensure that judgment of the Court was compliant with if it has filed appeal. Appeal does not in any way operate as a state. There must be a proper stay of the judgment of that Court. Are you following me? Because there was a proposal that was made.
Unless there is a stay on that judgment that was passed today, appeal does not in any way operate as a stay. But let me say this just before, because I know this is a prime time, issue of obedience to Court Order has been an issue that has occupied stakeholders in the industry and in the legal profession and we insist that we must respect that particular institution.
It’s the third arm of government and it’s there for a reason. Unless you operate in a dictatorial regime, if it is democracy, every judgment of the Court must be obeyed unless you have appealed against it. Now, if you have not appealed against it, you have no other choice than to obey.
But I found out in this country that people in government choose which of the Court orders to obey and they want to disobey, which is not actually helping and publicly developing our culture of obedience to court orders and even our democracy. And that is very critical. We must begin to make our judgment. And what the Court has done today clearly, clearly shows, send a signal to those who are occupying public office that you must begin to respect the judgment of the court in which you must be committed for contempt and the culprit cannot in any way be given a hearing in the court.
Yeah, that is, again, another aspect of our judicial process that we need to think about in terms of investigation. We have always advised that a different body must probably be engaged in the investigation and then another set of people carry out prosecution, sometimes they mixed things up. We see what happened in developed economies.
Before you blame any accused person, you must have done almost 90% of your investigation before you arrest. But here in this country, we discovered that our security agencies, we first of all arrest, and they now start searching for information or for evidence. And that’s why most times they engage in a manner of extracting confessional statements in a very, very autocratic and sometimes in a manner that shows that they have not obtained a confessional statement in a fair manner.
They have to make sure that they suffer that individual to extract confessional statement. So my advice is that we must thinker with our laws once again to insist that before you reign in any accused person for any crime, you must have done a larger percentage of an investigation and be convinced that that individual has committed that crime before bringing that individual.
And if you don’t have any evidence what you should do in the circumstances is to release that person 24 hours or maximum 48 hours. But we find out this situation, they bring you in, and they go to court and obtain court order in order to keep you for 30 days, 90 days in order to investigate a murder is actually something that is very abnormal, is not proper. It is clearly indecent and something that is is not allowed in democracy and shouldn’t be allowed”.
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