In the past, law enforcement agencies blamed their inability to investigate and prosecute corrupt judges on lack of approval by the National Judicial Council (NJC) or Chief Judges of the states where the judges serve. In this interview with Precious Igbonwelundu, Mr Norrison Quakers (SAN) says no such permissions are required. He also speaks on corruption in the judiciary and judicial officers receiving gifts, among others.
Corruption in the judiciary has been a burning issue for a long time with many judges facing probe. But nothing has been done regarding serving judicial officers receiving gifts. Is that not corruption?
Of course, it is corruption and an infraction on Paragraph 6 of the Code of Conduct for public officers. If a judge is found to have bridged his oath of allegiance, he can be sanctioned. The Code of Conduct Bureau is responsible for prosecuting such a judge because he is a public officer. The challenge we have is that the agencies responsible for prosecution are not living up to their responsibilities.
When an allegation of corruption is made, we have agencies to investigate and once there is overwhelming fact at the completion of investigation, the agency should have the judge arrested.
I was in court on a certain day before a judge and a lawyer told her to her face “I have done a petition against you. You cannot proceed with this matter.” Traditionally, it is unheard of. The late Justice Kayode Eso once said that during their time, when a lawyer makes far-reaching allegations against a judge, he is sent to prison, but today, when a lawyer makes far-reaching allegations against a judge, the judge says “go to hell”.
So, what that suggests to us is that there is provision for a platform for a lawyer to make such an allegation. In as much as I do not agree with the conduct of being confrontational with a judge, but for any lawyer who says such things, perhaps he spoke from an informed position of what must have transpired between them.
It is a known fact that the prosecution agencies cannot arrest any judge without the approval of the National Judicial Council (NJC) or the permission of the Chief Judge of a state where the judge works. So how will these agencies operate?
We must remind ourselves that the Chief Judge is an administrative head of a court. The agencies of government saddled with the responsibility to investigate do not need their approval to investigate judges. All that is required is a notification that complain has been made against a judge and the enforcement agency is investigating that judge.
The outcome of that investigation is also not given to a Chief Judge, but to the NJC to take disciplinary measures such as dismissal or suspension against the judge. For a judge indicted for corruption or criminal offence, his punishment is double- first he will face the NJC’s administrative punishment of either a suspension or dismissal and then, he also faces prosecution by law enforcement agencies. Prosecutorial agencies act mainly on complain and so, once these complains are made to them, it is done with utmost confidentiality until the facts are unraveled.
Is it right for a serving judge to write and launch a book or launch one written in his/her honour such that politicians/litigants with matters before them attend and make public donations?
Following the provisions of the Constitution, it is wrong. Books written or launched in their honour are gifts and as stated earlier, the Code of Conduct for public officers frowns at it. If you launch a book, the tendency is that you will not be able to draw the line between those who have matters before you and those who do not, except for notorious cases. If that is the case, then, it is not out of place to allege compromise. What is the essence of the maiden of justice wearing a blindfold? It is to dispense justice without fear or favour.
What if you have a matter before you and suddenly realise that one of the parties in the suit was perhaps the highest donor during your book launch? What happens? Ordinarily, the rule of natural justice says a judge should let go of a matter he has an interest in. But as human beings can a judge shut his eyes to someone who attended his book launch and gave him money?
That is why that provision is there to ensure that under no circumstance should a public officer accept gifts in connection to the performance of duty. So, I think it is wrong.
In addition to the book launch issue, it is also wrong for judges to compile and publish judgments they delivered for money. If a judge is gifted to write, it is good because I know a particular sitting judge in Ogun State. A fantastic judge and auhor; sometimes, I wonder how he finds the time to write. He has written several books, but has never done a book launch. His books are available in court premises and at notable bookshops.
He is not even involved in the sale of the books. He writes them and gives them to publishers to sell. There is also a judge of a Court of Appeal who is also an author. He is a professor of law, highly cerebral, but has never launched any of his books.
But some judges have developed the habit of doing a compendium of the judgments they have delivered and organise a book launch. Those judgments being put together, either by the judges or those who did it in their honour, do not belong to the judges especially for sitting judges.
As public officers, they are being paid salaries with tax payers’ money to conduct proceedings and deliver judgments. Whatever they come up with belong to the state and cannot be given out without the permission of the state.
But at retirement, a judge can do a book launch for posterity in which some of his judgments may be reproduced. People like Lord Denin and a few others did, though not the way we now make it appear.
As a people, we like to abuse things in this country. It is not out of place for a retired judge to launch a book, nor is it out of place for a serving judge to write a book. It is in avoidance of infractions of the provisions of law that is why public officers are discouraged from engaging in such activities.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo started this practice while in office with the launch of his presidential library with corporate giants, who made public donations in attendance. It is very wrong, and clearly an infraction of the constitution. But nothing was done about it. Who will go for instance, to arrest the then president that launched a presidential library? The corporate giants that donated at the event were people who ordinarily had no business being there because some of them were contractors to the government, but what happened? Our laws are being abridged with impunity and no one does anything about it. Whatever is given to a representative of an institution while in office, according to the Code of Conduct, belongs to that institution.
Would you say there is no head way in fighting corruption in the judiciary?
I won’t say there is no head way in addressing corruption in the judiciary. When we talk about the judiciary, we should not limit it to judges. There are three major stakeholders in the administration of justice. They are judges, lawyers and prosecutorial agents.
We must not isolate the judges in alleging corruption. Now, who corrupts the judges? You could have a situation where a judge is inherently corrupt, no doubt. But who fuels the corruption? It is either a lawyer or an enforcement agency/agent that fuels the corruption.
However, it is not as bad as it used to be. We are not there yet, but the current Chief Judge of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar has done quite a lot. Mind you, corruption has been institutionalised in our system and it is not what an individual can clear. She has done her bit by trying to sanitise the system. Under her watch, many judges are being investigated, some have been shown the door and also lawyers have been disciplined.
So, I won’t say corruption in the judiciary has continued unabated. It is difficult to completely eradicate corruption, but it can be managed and reduced to the barest minimum. What I think is happening now is the more you look, the less you see.
How do we solve the problem?
What I think we should do is strengthen the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the law enforcement agencies. Also, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) needs to set up a strategy that will be responsible for keeping the court under some watch. There is a young man (lawyer) who has been trying to keep the system under some watch through his magazine. Rightly or wrongly, some of us have come to also see some of those things he has been blowing whistles about. Irrespective of how stakeholders in the judiciary see him, the question to ask is if his work is effective. I think he has not done badly. Because once the young man is around certain quarters, people are mindful of the things they do or say. We need to have a watchdog of the judiciary so that once something goes wrong, there are whistle blowers who will give the information to appropriate quarters.
Once such a facility is put in place, people will sit up and confidence will return to the judiciary.
Are you saying people do not have confidence now?
I can say the society still has confidence in the judiciary. In some cases, you have judges who are fearless and allow justice take its cause. But my fear is because of the allegations of corruption and the role the NJC is playing by accepting all kinds of petitions, some judges are now afraid of doing justice for fear of petition.
A lawyer loses a case before a judge, instead of filing an appeal; such a lawyer writes a petition against the judge to the NJC. However, I would not say the situation is completely bad. The CJN at her swearing in, I remember, said corrupt judges would be investigated and handed over to prosecution agencies and I think she has been living up to her words.
You and I know that a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Once the facts are established after thorough investigation, the persons involved would be handed to the enforcement agencies since the NJC does not have prosecutorial powers.
Is there a law forbiding judges from fraternising?
There is no particular law per say, but there are judicial ethics and rule for judicial officers in terms of interaction. That is where the National Judicial Institute (NJI) and the NJC come in. Part of the training and re-orientation of judges is to inculcate those values in them. In the past, you do not find judges in social circles because it is part of their training and orientation. They imbibe these things at the NJI and they also have Code of Conduct of judicial officers handed down from the institute. When a lawyer is appointed a judge, the first place he is sent to is the NJI to imbibe those values.
With the way judges are seen at social gatherings and dinners with some of them drinking or fraternising, will it be wrong to say those rules are no longer handed over to them?
We must understand that judicial officers are also humans. Though, once a lawyer is elevated to a judicial officer, he/she is expected to make sacrifices, one of which is not being sociable. It is a price they pay for being judicial officers. It is personal, inherent and a self decision that must be made by each individual elevated to a judicial officer, whether as a magistrate or a judge.
Some of us cannot go to the bench because of our nature. We know who we are. Once you take and accept that decision of being a judicial officer and swear the oath of office, a line is drawn and you have selected to live an isolated life. The only people that can relate with you are probably your family and very close friends. You must be far from the social circles because you do not want to be influenced when you find yourself in such gatherings.
A cousin of mine once said she saw a friend of hers (Justice Nwodo of blessed memory) at a function and she noticed the judge was isolated from the crowd. It was a social function, but justice Nwodo did not interact. My cousin said out of curiosity, she walked up to her and asked if she was a judicial officer and she said yes. It was a gathering to honour their close friend, but she was just secluded and eventually left unannounced in the course of the ceremony. That is a judicial officer.
Those who are garrulous and friendly, I cannot on the basis of the conduct of a particular judge; say what they are doing is wrong. It amounts to who you are. Can you draw the line? There are people like Justice Uwais, who can be smiling and at the same time insist on his position. You cannot on the basis of your friendship with him, influence him. With a smile, he will tell you no. Then, for some of them, it is only now that they are retired that they interact with the society as a whole. For me, the vices in the judiciary these days are more of human errors than the laws.
So how do we address these vices?
I think those who observe the excesses should report and let the NJC and NJI recall the judges for refresher courses. The judicial office is like a tunnel and the journey through the tunnel cannot be cut short at the middle. The officers must work through the tunnel to the end and must be very sensitive, sensible and extremely careful.
Like I said earlier, we need to have whistle blowers, not necessarily for the purpose of punishment, but as corrective measures. We cannot afford to continually showcase our judiciary to the worlds as being corrupt because it will drive away investors. Monitors should be put in place to nip in the bud those who fuel corruption or influence judges.
Do you think it is right for politicians to play a role in the appointment of judicial officers?
In so far as the executive plays a role in the appointment of judges, there will always be loyalty problems. There is a human element involved. If someone is responsible for my elevation, as a human being, I will be eternally grateful to that person. Some politicians will do it and not want a favour in return, whereas, others will do it and use it as an avenue to achieve their selfish aims. It still boils down to the kind of people we are. We must learn to do things without expecting a reward or benefit. We are in a very vindictive society such that someone can take advantage of his or her position to do another wrong. When a politician is influential to a judge’s appointment and needs a favour from the said judge, once the judge declines, the politician starts looking for a way to pull the judge down. I think it is time we stopped the executive from playing any role in the appointment of judges, but the constitution will have to be amended in order to achieve that. We also need to cage human tendencies, until we get to a point where a judge can look a litigant in the eye and do justice, no matter who he is, we have a long way to go.
