Should Elevation Age To Judicial Bench Be Pegged? By: Abdulrasheed Ibrahim

Most often when there are job vacancies and the qualification age is pegged, some people in their desperation to get the job will run to the court deposing to affidavits faking their ages. Sometime I ask the rationale behind the pegging of age in some jobs. There are places even law firms where jobs are made available only to those people with the First Class or Second Class Upper Degrees. If you do not fall into these categories you become Personam Non Granta. I think with the high rate at which some private universities are now producing first Class Degree holders, new yardstick may soon be introduced. The likes of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN the people’s lawyer did not make First Class before performing very well in the profession warranting the great jurist, late Hon. Justice Aniagolu to say about him that: “No Nigerian to date has marched the indomitable energy you have put up for the growth of law in this country…” Back to the question at hand, just last week the Delta State Judiciary was in the news that henceforth only those below the age of 50 will be appointed as judges in that state. According to the report in the Punch Newspaper, the Chief Judge of the state, Hon. Justice Marshal Umukoro said in a statement made available on his behalf by the judiciary’s Public Relation Officer that the policy had become necessary to enhance the prospects of the judges from the state for appointment into the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. While one may not completely disagree with such policy, but the reality on the ground is that this may be disadvantageous to many lawyers or even judicial officers on the lower bench in the state. A lawyer that is elevated to the bench at 50 will have 15 years to spend on the state judicial bench before retiring compulsorily at the age of 65 if he is not elevated before that age to the Court of Appeal and later to the Supreme Court where he will retire at the age of 70. With this policy in place, the questions we need ask are: Are lawyers from the age of 50 and above are no longer eligible to be appointed as High Court judges in Delta State regardless of the fact that those applicants on their own are aware that they may not reach the appellate court? Does this mean that those judicial officers who have reached the age of 50 on the magisterial bench in the Delta State will not be elevated to the State High Court bench? To me ,there should not be any hindrance to the desire of any lawyer who wants to be elevated to the bench to serve his fatherland in as much as he is competent and knowledgeable. The advantage for those people that get elevated to the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court at very younger age is that their chances of becoming the President of the Court of Appeal (PCA) or Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) is always very high. That itself is not usually without disadvantages to the judges from the zone or the state they come from. For the sake of clarity and from my understanding, elevation to the appellate court is usually on zoning basis. If there is no vacancy in your zone or for your state for appellate elevation, no matter how long you stay for instance in the Court of Appeal, you may not be elevated to the Supreme Court. If you do not understand this analysis, let me give you very clear examples. In my article titled ALOMA MUKHTAR: MAKING OF FEMALE CHIEF JUSTICE, published in the Moment Newspaper of July 23, 2012 , I observed that : “Justice Mukhtar sat at the Court of Appeal for close to eighteen (18) years from 1987 to 2005 before her elevation to the Supreme Court. Many of the male Justices that met her at the Court of Appeal and later got elevated to the Supreme Court served under her at various divisions of the court where she served as the presiding justice.” Also in my article titled UWAIS: SALUTE TO A GREAT JURIS AT 80 published in the This Day Newspaper of 21.06.2016 I again observed that: “Hon. Justice Muhammadu Lawal Uwais sat on the Supreme Court Bench for 27 years out of which he presided over the court as the Chief Justice of Nigeria for 11 years.” As I have said earlier, the above illustrate the advantage in getting to the appellate court at very younger age which is not without price and sacrifice especially for instance in the case of Justice Mukhtar who had to stay in Court of Appeal for 18 years. Such Justice will have to vacate the seat at the Court of Appeal by retirement or elevation to the Supreme Court before another Justice from his zone or state can come in to take that seat. This same policy is equally applicable to the elevation to the Court of Appeal from the various Federal High Court, High Court of States, Shariah Court of Appeal and Customary Court of Appeal and now the National Industrial Court. There may not be anything bad with the idea of States pegging the elevation age of their candidates to the appellate court with the prospect of enhancing their chances of getting to the Supreme Court or becoming the CJN, but those states must bear in minds the disadvantage that goes with it as illustrated above. I am of the opinion that the idea of pegging the elevation age to the High Court of the States will be of serious disadvantage to those lawyers aspiring to go to their states judicial bench as well as those Magistrates who are already in the system. When a similar idea was muted during the reign of Hon. Justice Elias as the Chief Justice of Nigeria, those who felt their interest would be affected met with the CJN as depicted by the late Hon. Justice Ephraim Akpata, JSC in his book JUSTICE FOR ALL AND BY ALL published in 1994 at page 23 that : “Dr. Taslim Elias as the Chief Justice of Nigeria once decried the practice of appointing judges from the lower Bench. His pronouncement on the issue was given wide publicity by a section of the press. He favoured appointment from the Bar. A delegation from the Magistrates’ Association met with him on the issue. He assured the Association that good material from the lower Bench would still be appointed to the Higher Bench.” What should be upper most in our minds this time around is how to get the best materials into our judicial system. The brilliant and sound applicants for the bench should not be sacrificed at the expense of age pegging for elevation to the High Court bench. The practice in those days when good lawyers who were not from a particular state were elevated to the bench of that state seems to have gone out of fashion. What is now in vogue is that you can hardly get elevated to the bench of the state where you practice if you are not from that state. And ironically again if you practice outside your home state and you eventually apply to be elevated to your home state bench, some may argue against you that you have not been practicing in your state. In 1980, the then Governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Kayode sworn in late Hon. Justice Morenike Onalaja as a judge of Lagos State High Court. Justice Onalaja was from Ogun State and was practicing law in Ibadan before his elevation. In 1985, Hon. Justice Niki Tobi from the then Bendel State (now Delta State) was sworn in as a Judge of the Rivers State High Court. Hon. Justice Tobi before then was a lecturer and Professor of Law at University of Maiduguri. It was the brilliance manifested by these people that warranted their elevation to the bench outside their home states. Their contributions to the development of law in Nigeria remain indelible till date. To the best of my knowledge, except Lagos State, I do not know of any other state where this kind of thing is still being done. WHEN A JURIST MOUNTS THE THRONE Hon. Justice Francis Fedode Tabai, JSC, CON who retired from the Supreme Court some years back is now the Paramount Ruler of his Community, the Tuomo Kingdom in Buritu Local Government of Delta State. The Kingdom has remained without King for about 72 years now. With the emergence of Justice Tabai as the King in the election conducted by the kingmakers, the new life is now brought to the Kingdom. The acceptance of the retired Supreme Court Jurist to the throne was very overwhelming. There was jubilation all over the kingdom that the son of the soil who was the first in everything as far as Law Profession is concerned in the kingdom is now the king. The jurist was said to be the first lawyer, the first Magistrate, the first High Court judge, the first Justice of Court of Appeal and the first Justice of the Supreme Court from the Kingdom. We believe that with all these experiences, the kingdom whose throne is now being mounted by this great jurist will witness a lot of peace, unity and progress. The contribution of Hon. Justice Tabai to the development of law and jurisprudence in Nigeria is equally indelible. We therefore congratulate the new King on the throne of Tuomo Kingdom. REMARKABLE PRONOUNCEMENT ON POLICE RECKLESSNESS “This case represents the height of man’s inhumanity to man. The appellant and his co-accused police constables employed by the nation to protect the lives and properties of its citizenry embarked on this unlawful mission in their brazen brutality, terminated the lives of these five innocent and defenseless victims, with unimaginable damages to their beloved ones and families back at their various homes. The case demonstrates the regrettable reality that the numerous police check points along our highways only give the citizenry a false sense of security.” Per TABAI , JSC in Oyakhire Vs. State (2006) 15 NWLR (Pt. 1001) Pg 177 Paras C-D THE SETTLED PRINCIPLE OF LAW On effect of partitioning family property “It is settled that partition in the technical sense is one of the methods by which family property is determined. Partition of family property can only be effected by the general consent of the family. Such consent does not exclude, according to customary law, it being carried out orally. The effect of partitioning is that the property which had hitherto belonged to the family is split up into ownership of the constituent member of the family. It puts an end to the communal ownership. When the division is among constituent branches of the family, a new family ownership is created.” See Bello (Selia) Vs. Udoye (2004) 19 WRN 58 at 85; Olorunfemi & Ors. Vs. Aso (2000) 2 NWLR (Pt. 647)143; Ojelade Vs. Soroye (1998) 5 NWLR (Pt. 549) 284 at 304; OYADIJI Vs. OLANIYI (2005) 5 NWLR (Pt. 919) Pg. 575 Paras C-E For more Settled Principles of Law and Remarkable Pronouncements from our Supreme Court Jurists from 1956-2016, obtain or order for your copies of LAW PRACTICE KIT and LEGAL LUMINARIES. Call or text 08055476823, 08164683735 or email:rasheedibraheem68@yahoo.com. Your library is incomplete without these books.]]>