Acting CJN Laments Depletion in Supreme Court Justices’ Number

The drop in the number of Justices of the Supreme Court to 13 has added to the burden of the apex court, the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Justice Olukayode Ariwoola has said.

Justice Ariwoola spoke in Abuja on Thursday at a valedictory court session in honour of the retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Abdu Aboki.

The CJN said: “His Lordship’s (Aboki’s) exit from our fold has drastically depleted our ranks and opened a yawning gap that will hardly be filled.”

Justice Aboki exited the apex court’s Bench on August 5 this year on attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70.

With his retirement, the number of Justices of the Supreme Court slumped to 13.

The CJN, who noted that the number of Justices of the court has fallen from 17 to 13 within this year, said “a single drop in the number of justices here brings about a sudden increase in our workload.”

He hailed Justice Aboki, who he noted, has contributed greatly to the development of the nation’s legal system.

But, the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (BOSAN) blamed the rapid depletion in the number of court Justices to its faulty process of recruitment.

Chief Onomigbo Okpoko (SAN) who spoke for BOSAN), said the “appointment process appears to have been designed and operated to exclude good and competent lawyers” from being appointed Justices of appellate courts.

Okpoko noted that the policy that encourages geographical spread in public service appointments as being the foundation of the mediocrity and incompetence that now threaten the system.

He added: “The body (BOSAN) has said it times without number and in various fora that the method of selection of candidates for appointment of Justices in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal is unsatisfactory in the extreme.

“The appointment process appears to have been designed and operated to exclude good and competent lawyers in the legal profession from being appointed Justices of our appellate courts.

“There are two aspects of this restrictive policy by the appointing authorities.

“The first is that the appointing authority appears to have established a policy that the vacancies created by exit of Justices of Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal are to be filled by picking a candidate from the state of the vacating justice only notwithstanding the availability of known better candidates readily at hand from other states or Local Government Areas in case of judges at trial courts.

“By the practice, our nation, our citizens, foreign and local businessmen/women, who use and or are expected to resort to the courts of law for resolution of their problems in Nigeria are denied the opportunity of having their cases considered and decided by appellate courts manned by best legal minds, the nation can produced at any time.

“This is a very sad reflection on our nation and the nation’s judiciary. The policy of geographical spread in public service and in public service appointments is acknowledged today, to be the foundation for the mediocrity and incompetence in some areas of the public service of our nation,” he said.

Okpoko recalled how the Supreme Court was once manned by five Nigerian jurists, who were from the Yoruba and Igbo tribes, but whose performance still remains a reference point in the history of the nation’s Judiciary.

He added: “So we asked, what justification is there to exclude good, competent and available candidates from the Bar and operate the policy of replacement to be the basis for the selection and appointment of candidates to man appellate courts.

“The National Judicial Council, as the appointing authority, should address this issue and appoint best candidates of our country to man our courts. After all, justice is blind and so does not look at or see the faces of litigants.

“Justice knows no tribe and has no colour or religion. It has no specified location because it is everywhere. Let no one put on the Nigerian judiciary the iron clad case restricting the appointment of our justices in the manner complained of,” Okpoko said.

Justice Aboki urged the National Assembly to consider amending the Constitution and other extant laws in such a way that only appeals relating to the presidential election should come to the Supreme Court, while others should end at the Court of Appeal.

He noted that this measure would reduce the number of appeals coming to the Supreme Court, particularly in relation to election-related cases.

He called on the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee to review the requirements for the conferment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria to the extent that it will reduce unnecessary pressure on the court.