Lest We Forget the Retired Judicial Office Holders’ Retirement Package!
By Dr. Muiz Banire SAN
This intervention is necessitated by two developing events in our polity. The first is the ongoing appropriation process which makes provisions for future government expenditures. The second is the recent transition of the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association and the fast-approaching Annual General Meeting of the body. The two events have nexus with the subject of this conversation, which is essentially about alleviating the sufferings of our retired judicial office holders. It will be recalled that in the years preceding the review of the salaries and allowances of serving judicial office holders, and even beyond, I have had cause to discuss the precarious living conditions of retired judicial office holders. In fact, in one of the interventions, as if I had the premonition that the reform coming up would exclude retired judicial office holders, I had cautioned and canvassed that we must not forget nor ignore their situation in the review of the salaries and allowances of the serving judicial office holders. Regrettably, by the time the review was ultimately passed and effected by way of legislation, the plight of retired judicial officers was not addressed and remained the same. This is understandable in the light of the constitutional provision that inhibits the extension of the review to the retired judicial office holders.
While it is much easier repealing the Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, Etc) Amendment Act, 2008 and replacing it with the latest Act which isolates judicial office holders from other political office holders, it is impracticable to actualize the same in the case of retired judicial office holders, as the provision governing their retirement packages is entrenched in the Constitution. The Constitution in this regard failed to envisage the exigencies of the future as economically unfolding in the country. The constitutional provision doomfully stagnated the emoluments of retired judicial office holders to the last package that is not only unrealistic now, but worthless. The implication of this is that a constitutional amendment is required to review the status of their entitlements. The amendment will require the cooperation and approval of two-third of the state’s legislatures in the country, aside from the role of the National Assembly. This, unfortunately, if not triggered by the stakeholders, cannot be a priority to the political class who hardly remembers that this category of citizens exist, much less appreciating their plights. As things stand, except there is divine intervention or concerted efforts of all the stakeholders in the judiciary and the society at large, it is most unlikely that the precarious situation will ever be addressed, much less reversed.
As I said elsewhere, as we expect judicial officers to be above board in the discharge of their functions, so also must the State provide them enabling and conducive atmosphere to operate without temptation. The point needs to be made that due to the paltry retirement packages and pensions that retired judicial officers are provided with, this imposes a sense of future insecurity on them. To this end, it impairs not only their reasoning and objectivity, it saps their peace of mind to concentrate on the job. Where a judge is unsure of settlement plan, it weakens his focus in all ramifications. The import of this is that, where such judicial officers did not succumb to the temptation of corruption while in active service, his productivity will be poor, as he has to seek salvation elsewhere through hustling; or lose focus and concentration on his basic assignment.
This is certainly glossing over the consequential drift of rendering wrong judgments. We must note the reality that these retired judicial office holders are subject of the same economic variables that necessitated the review of the emoluments of the serving judicial office holders . They certainly do not have different markets to make their purchases; nor do they have different petrol prices or electricity tariffs, amongst others. Where do they start from then? Before the devaluation of the currency and the raging inflation, they were already down.
Now with the economic downturn, they have economically collapsed and most of them in a state of comatose. Without exaggerating, the society have turned some of the retired judicial office holders into beggars. Undoubtedly, this is a curse on the system and the society that engendered this. How do you, in the circumstances, therefore, admonish the serving judicial office holders to be upright? The Yorubas will say, iku ti o n pa ojugba eni, owe ni n pa fun ni which literally means when one’s peers are dying, it foretells your mortality. As the serving judicial office holders see the miserable state and lives of their erstwhile colleagues in retirement, they warn themselves of the imminent need to secure themselves for the future. This has its implication that is better imagined than experienced. The impacts of the economic situation on these retired judicial office holders are humiliating and debilitating, banishing the lots of them to abject poverty. Recent statistics is unveiling the alarming rate at which they are dying prematurely. I was shown recently a retired judicial office holder at the commercial bus stop struggling for public transportation. Even without such retired judicial holder’s death, he is not living again but merely existing.
These were judicial officers that have rendered so many judgments which necessarily cannot be delightful to all parties, particularly in criminal matters. The implication of this is that the society is already endangering them alive. They could be ‘crushed’ at anytime by the convicts they have condemned in the past. This is a mild picture of the harrowing experience and life of an average retired judicial office holder. I am being measured in my exposition, so as not demoralized the serving judicial office holders. The gory and agonizing picture is better continuously imagined than painted further. The point I am struggling to make is that the country needs to urgently address the plight of these retired judicial office holders, as the situation is now embarrassing.
As I remarked above, the reality is that by the time a serving judicial officer retires, his emolument is calculated on the basis of the last earned salary and allowances, which invariably amount to a peanut. When this impecuniosity is further benched against the state of health of most of the retired judicial office holders, the situation becomes, not only pitiful but tearful. The system subjected them to this abuse, making their situations excruciating to the extent of birthing their deplorable states of health. Most of them eventually become a burden and liability, not only to themselves and their families but the society at large. Their years of active service now become a curse, and indeed a sorrowful one. A life full of regrets sets in, and they significantly live like this till death. This calls for concerted efforts to reverse it by all stakeholders. The agitation for this reversal seems to have slipped off the radar since we succeeded in raising the bar for the serving judicial office holders. We must appreciate the fact that in the nearest future, what was secured for the serving judicial office holders today, will, at a point in the future, equally become paltry. In addition, serving judicial office holders of today will tomorrow be the retired ones. I therefore call on the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association to join in the clarion call to urgently address this despicable situation.
The Annual General Meeting must come out with a bang in this respect. The body of Benchers, the National Judicial Council, the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria and other stakeholders must, in a concerted manner, address the situation. I have in one of my interventions (See my column in the Daily Sun of 11th April 2024 “Judicial officers and salaries and wages review bill https://sunnewsonline.com/judicial-officers-and-salaries-and-wages-review-bill/” ) stated the provisions that need be made for the retired judicial office holders and will not bore you further through repetition. To actualize the demands for the upgrade of the retired judicial office holders’ renumerations, however, two things must happen in the alternatives. The basic intervention required is to tamper with the constitutional provision that is the albatross. In doing this, it is either we urgently pursue the repeal or review of the provision.
In the former instance of repeal, the provision for the entitlements of the retired judicial office holders will then be incorporated into the new Act governing that of the serving judicial office holders; or in the latter instance, we delete the delimitation to the last earned salaries and emoluments. The implication of this is that such entitlement is benchmarked against contemporary state of equivalent salaries and emoluments of serving judicial office holders, or such other threshold as may be obtainable from time to time. I am aware that at a point in time, a committee of the Body of Benchers on which I served, has done a draft of the amendment in the latter situation and only needs to be aggressively pursued with the legislators.
Other stakeholders can collaborate in this respect towards the actualization of the amendment. The other possible way out is to seek judicial interpretation of the provision in a liberal and purposeful manner, adopting the mischief rule. I am positive that if this approach of interpretation of the provision is adopted, the provision can be judicially and realistically construed to meet the essence of its insertion. This is a low-hanging fruit. Precedents have been set in several regards on this approach, the latest being the apex court’s decision in the local government case. The decision in the Naira redesign case is still equally fresh in our memory. These are productive and useful decisions that support the interrogation in that way. The urgency involved in the other leg of this discourse is that the appropriation process is likely to terminate by the end of this month.
This implies that where no provision is made to meet the eventual and envisaged increment in the entitlements of the retired judicial office holders, the eventual removal of the constitutional obstacle in whatever way will come to naught this year. It is, therefore, imperative that we ‘force’ the insertion of the provision in the budget pending the resolution of the constitutional logjam. The National Judicial Council and other relevant bodies must swiftly move to ensure this. This is my plea!
