Judiciary poised to tackle conflicting judgments in new legal year

The Nigerian judicial system in recent times has been riddled with various conflicting court judgment and rulings, which has placed it in the bad eye of the populace, who look towards it as the last hope of the common man.

To this end various stakeholders, including the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed has berated the current menace with a strong will to rid the system of this phenomenon, with a promise to sanction erring judges, who might be found culpable of this act.

Justice Mohammed at the swearing in of the newly appointed Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), at the Supreme Court in Abuja, had specifically informed that the National Judicial Council (NJC) is currently investigating the cases of contrasting judgments emanating from courts of coordinate jurisdiction.

This situation has however, been notably prominent in cases involving the crisis rocking the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which had left Ali Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi locked on in some legal battle for supremacy.

The CJN however said that all the judges involved in the situation are being investigated and would be sanctioned, if need be.

Similarly, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court of Nigeria, Justice Ndahi Auta, in a separate fora of the special court session for the commencement of the federal high Court legal year 2016/2017 cautioned the members of the bar to be “careful in filling cases on issues that are still pending before other courts”.

Auta while responding to remarks on this issue, said that the members of the bar are to be blamed for the conflicting judgments, by going ahead to file frivolous suits before courts of coordinate jurisdiction, when such matters are still pending before another court of equal jurisdiction.

“We are not going to take this at our forthcoming judges’ conference. It is something we should try to avoid”, Ndahi said.

While thanking President Buhari for approving more judges for the courts, informed that out of the 16,680 cases filed within the period of September 2015 to June 2016, 13,864 cases have already been disposed of by the judges.

The Attorney General of the federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Abubakar Malami had also called on stakeholders in the judicial system, to “desist from acts that could portray the judiciary in the bad eye of the public”.

Earlier, the new President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abubakar Mahmoud also called on the CJ “to do something about the issue of conflicting judgments so it does not undermine the judicial process”.