JUSUN Shouldn’t Have Called Off Strike, Say Ozekhome, Ubani

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome, said he was not surprised that the governors refused to abide by the MoA after JUSUN called off the strike.

“When they were calling off their strike due to pressure from the Bench and Bar, I knew they would achieve nothing. We are dealing with governments at all levels that cannot be trusted for anything. Ethics and morality have taken the back stage. Governments now lie to the citizens. Transparency and accountability have gone to the dogs,” Ozekhome said.

The SAN advised JUSUN to consider deploying “an order of mandamus against any governor that refuses to abide by its provisions.”

He said, “Any further JUSUN strike will hurt an already battered economy very badly; international investors will continue to run away to friendlier countries. A nation without a stable judiciary to settle business and corporate disputes is not an investor’s dream place.”

Also, the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law, Mr Monday Ubani, said, “We told them (JUSUN) not to call off the other strike but they still did. I do not think the NBA will be ready to fight for them this time. We told them not to call off the strike until they are sure that the governors are ready to comply with financial autonomy. What do they want the NBA to do?

“I do not know why we should go back and forth on this issue. I heard one governor saying he is not going to comply but he has been attacking the Federal Government over the same issue.

“I think the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria should sort themselves out because they did not do well by calling the last strike. We had supported them 100 per cent; if they really want the NBA to support them, they should reach out to the leadership. We can still have a round-table discussion to iron out the issues.”

A former Commissioner for Education in Ondo State, Remi Olatubora (SAN), advised JUSUN to enlist the support of the NBA in the push for financial autonomy for the states’ judiciary.

He said, “My advice to the Judiciary workers is that they should not do it alone. They must work together with the Nigerian Bar Association. This is simply because litigation lawyers are also technically judiciary workers. Without lawyers, there is no Judiciary and without judiciary, there are no judiciary workers.”

Also reacting, another SAN, Mallam Yusuf Ali, wondered why the matter of autonomy for the judiciary had dragged for long.

Ali said, “Any form of industrial action affects the economy negatively. Now, a strike by the court is not only economic, it affects the social fabric. It leads to unnecessarily long incarceration of people who are awaiting trial. It disrupts the flow of economic litigation. It puts the government in a bad light. The issue with JUSUN is a simple matter. Our governors should sign up that the judiciary should be financially independent of the executive. Simple! I don’t see why this should be difficult. Of the three arms of government, the judiciary has the best educated people. If the executive can manage its own finances; the legislature can do so, too; why then is it difficult for the most enlightened arm of government to manage its finances?

“It is unfortunate. It should not degenerate to this level because it is a constitutionally guaranteed point for the judiciary to be able to access its fund, administer it and be accountable for it.”

Similarly, Mr Babatunde Ogala (SAN), said, “They (JUSUN) are asking for judicial autonomy as prescribed by law. However, I think that in taking industry actions, the union itself would need to isolate cases where the states and the relevant authorities have all implemented this autonomy. I know in Lagos during the last strike, the state chapter of JUSUN said they didn’t have any problem.

“I will like to appeal to the union to please not let us paralyse the justice sector again. We have yet to recover from the long strike of early this year. Up to today, cases that ought to be heard and concluded are still being rescheduled.

“People whose liberty had been unjustly compromised and curtailed have yet to recover. There are persons whose detention cases did not go on for so long. You cannot punish everyone for the sins of a few. The states should also do that which is right.”

Another SAN, Robert Emukpoeruo, said it would take an amendment to the constitution to finally lay the struggle for financial autonomy for the judiciary to rest.

He said, “I know that this ongoing constitutional amendment has a proposal that would take care of this particular problem. Until that is done, we’d have this back and forth issue of the judiciary not really being fully autonomous. It is a constitutional constraint; that is the real problem. The real solution is to amend the constitution and let the judicial arm and by extension, every arm of government, be financially autonomous.”