Two Justices Dissent From Supreme Court Decision Allowing Muslim Students To Wear Hijab In Lagos School

*Reasons that abiding by school regulation does not amount to breach of fundamental rights

In an appeal case of Lagos State Government v. Asiyat Abdulkareem (through her father) & Ors. before the Supreme Court, heard by a 7 man panel where 5 Majority Justices of the Apex Court upheld the rights of Muslim students to wear hijab to public and secondary schools in Lagos State, two learned Justices of the Apex Court gave a dissenting opinion to the reasoning of the Majority.

In his dissenting judgement, John Inyang Okoro, JSC stated that he did agree with the Majority’s reasoning but disagreed with the conclusion reached. According to the learned Justice, there was no correlation between the Appellant maintaining a standard as per dress code and complaint of denial of fundamental rights.

The learned justice further reasoned that the respondent must have consented to abide by the school regulations upon admission into the School, and seeing that one of the school’s regulations was wearing a ‘school uniform’ that met the standard of the Lagos State Policy and Rules on Guidelines on the Uniformity in mode of Dressing in Public Schools, it would be absurd to argue that the Fundamental rights of Respondents have been breached. It was the view of Okoro JSC that, bringing religious sentiment and biases into dressing in formal places such as public schools will be chaotic. And it was on this basis that the learned Justice allowed the appeal.

In the Same line of reasoning, Emmanuel Akomoye Agim JSC, on his part, reasoned that the whole idea of school uniform was to ensure the Uniformity and it had no correlation to breach of the right to freedom of religion.

Furthermore, the learned Justice opined that the Court could not disregard S. 10 of the Constitution which stated that no State may adopt any religion, and it was on this basis that the Appellant refuse to allow any practice that may seem to disclose that it was adopting a religion for the State. To buttress this point, Anyim JSC relied on the case of Sahan v. Turkey, where the European Court of Human rights upheld that hijab was banned in Universities in Turkey after the interpretation of the Turkish constitution which had similar provisions with that of S. 10 of the Nigerian Constitution. On this basis, the learned Justice also allowed the appeal.

However, majority of the Supreme Court held that refusing the wearing of hijab in schools was a violation of the right to religion as provided for in s. 38 of the Constitution.