Judges, Lawyers and Insults in Courtroom Hearings and Judgments

Judges interact both with law and facts, in the course of sifting the evidence, facts and laws placed before them by counsel, during hearing. By these facts, one is hard-pressed to never let slide the thought that personal insults could ever be found among the noble in mind and gentle of thought.

It is not an entirely new phenom, as it would be believed. It is definitely a growing and never ending phenom. The case law reports from the time immemorial is replete with judges insulting counsel, and higher courts upbraiding lower court judges, especially in the Nigerian judicial space.

Of late, the Halls of Justice in Nigeria and the United States have seen quite a handful of judicial insults. People ask: “What is the law?”. In a serious fit of emotion, Judges now haul bad faith insults during both hearing and judgment of a matter before them. That’s a most noble outcome! It goes beyond saying, that personal insults are not law, facts and evidence of a case. What reason is there for using them other than emotion, as stated before now?

Richard A. Posner, an appellate judge of the Seventh Circuit, known for laying into the Supreme Court of the United States (SCotUS), called the entire institution, “mediocre”, and labelled Chief Justice John Roberts a “terrible” court manager for his dissenting opinions on issues. Posner ridiculed the Justices of SCotUS, along with their various rulings, saying they “babble incessantly” during oral arguments. Of particular interest is the fact that he called the opinions of Chief Justice Roberts “stupid”.

The Hall of Justice in Nigeria is a tad different, as the personal insult game does take a downward spiral from the Supreme Court of Nigeria (SCoN), the apex court, to the lower courts. In all of this, the lawyers are not spared. Days removed, the SCoN, per the acting CJN Walter Onnoghen, as a predator upon its prey, homed in on a senior lawyer, Nwofor Benuolisa (SAN), calling him names like “a disgrace” to the profession of law, and scowling words like “you call yourself a senior advocate”. One would ordinarily not think the senior advocate is the one that called himself “a senior advocate” until “My noble Lord” spoke those words.

Fate of Justice Abang of the Federal High Court of Nigeria does go to it. The Appeal Justice X, had called him names like ” tool of evil” over some judgment he delivered, which the Appeal Court has the power to overrule. Yet overruled and insulted him upon it, as an extra take.

So, are we starting to feel around for the law in the disturbing ocean of personal insults and judicial slights? What about justice? Insult-marinated justice before the law gets to it. Not to worry. In the face of all these, the profession is still of good, noble and gentle breeding as ever.

Boulevard A. Aladetoyinbo LP
Admin at Law Ethics & Practice (LEaP).

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