Legality, Politics And Justice

By Dayo Sobowale

The dismissal of the 2019 Presidential election petition of by the Election Tribunal in Nigeria this week, together with the allegation in the UK that the British PM Boris Johnson lied to the Queen in getting her consent to prorogate Parliament, provide food for thought today. We shall look at these two issues in the light of the statement that the law can be an ass at times and also wonder aloud how legal erudition can somewhat turn to buffoonery given the reasons that eminent lawyers pursue in open court to advance their clients cases and interests. We also take a peep at how the US President Donald Trump is using the US Supreme Court as a’ weapon’ to advance his policies on immigration in the American presidential system of politics.

These events throw up the issues of legitimacy, legality, the rule of law and the pursuit of justice in any political system and are not peculiar to Nigeria, the UK and the US. On each scenario however we shall highlight what we deem to be the mood, guiding principle or motivation. We shall therefore as in Nigeria’s case ask why the legal luminaries that represented the opposition PDP thought that a presidential candidate like the incumbent Nigerian president can be disqualified on account of his educational qualification given his background as an Army General and someone who had contested and lost elections for the same office four times in the past . In Britain we shall see the implications of mendacity by the PM for Brexit and the future of the British Parliamentary system. In the US we examine the rancorous cowboy politics of the US President in filling the US Supreme Court with crony judges who give him legal backing for his political agenda and see how that is affecting US politics consequently. Let me now dilate broadly on these highlighted situations in the three nations.

Of all the five grounds of appeal, by the PDP dismissed by the Election tribunal it is the educational qualification that I found most interesting. How it got to be an issue to disqualify this particular candidate on this ground is simply unbelievable. It happened before when legal luminary GOK Ajayi brought up the issue of educational qualification of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the presidential election he won at the time. The two events are similar but in the case of President Muhammadu Buhari I think it is a provocative insult and shows that the lawyers for Atiku lack the erudition they parade in not seeing the absurdity of a plea for disqualification on lack of requisite qualification of a candidate who went to NDA, became a general in the army, was a military Head of State and had contested election four times before and lost, till he won in 2015 and 2019.

One does not need the lengthy judgment that threw out the disqualification on account of education given by the tribunal because simple common sense showed the buffoonery of the plea. Indeed the president deserved exemption from educational qualification given his military service and the height he reached and not the disgrace of disqualification based on his education as his opposing lawyers averred at the tribunal. This really was a lesson in absurdity and a great mistake of seeking to make an ass of the law. I can recall what Agrippa the judge told Paul of Tarsus in the bible, ‘Paul, Paul thou art mad, thine too much learning doth turneth thee to madness ‘Really too much erudition especially in the law can make lawyers fall from the sublime to the ridiculous.

In the UK the rule of law is facing a huge test over Brexit that is bound to task Britain’s monarchical democracy that has hitherto served it so brilliantly in providing political stability. On occasions like this one can recall a statement on the beauty of the role of British monarch that says –‘ with the Queen in Buckingham Palace every Briton sleeps well in his bed. ‘This statement puts absolute trust of the British in their monarchy as a bastion of stability and security. Now if a PM is adjudged to have lied to the Queen, a charge Boris Johnson has denied, then the British people should have great cause for concern about the workings of their Parliamentary democracy. But credibility is an asset that Boris Johnson is losing fast on Brexit .

He has promised that Britain will leave the EU deal or no deal by October 31. But Parliament last week passed a law prohibiting No Deal and when asked if he would implement that he said he would rather be seen dead in a ditch . But then even though a court in England ruled his prorogation legal, another court in Scotland has ruled otherwise noting judicially that his prorogation was to stymy Parliament and a higher court is expected to resolve the legality of the Prorogation presently. Already the Speaker who has said he would leave his post by October 31 has vowed that Parliament will not allow anyone to bypass the laws it has enacted on Brexit. There is no doubt in my mind that Boris Johnson is going to do something nasty and illegal while Parliament is on suspension . The saying is quite apt here that while the cat is away mice would pay. Surely the British PM knows his onions on Brexit but he should be careful that Brexit , deal or know deal, does not become his political hemlock.

We round up with US President Donald Trump who had the backing of the US Supreme Court this week in his policy of reducing the rate of immigration from named nations as well as from Central America through its neighbor Mexico. The US Supreme Court has ruled to allow government to severely limit the ability of migrants to ask for asylum in the US once they failed to do so in a transit nation before. Lower courts have ruled against this before and stopped the Trump policy in its tracks to his chagrin. Now that Trump has majority of judges on the Supreme Court, who share his world views on many issues, he is using the rule of law to have his way. While some may accuse him of subverting the checks and balances inherent in the presidential system there are those who will say that separation of powers does not necessarily preclude symmetry between the executive and legal arms of a presidential system of government. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.