Supreme Court Allays Concerns Over Online Payment Of Bar Practicing Fees, Says It Is In Order

The Acting Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Hajo Sarki Bello has responded to controversies relating the payment of the annual Bar Practicing Fees by lawyers this year.

The leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association after its last NEC Meeting for 2021 held at Ibadan in December declared that from this year, Nigerians lawyers are to pay the traditional BPF via an online platform.

This directive elicited divergent reactions from lawyers across the country as some lawyers described the move as illegal and an appropriation of the powers of the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court under the Legal Practitioners Act.

You would recall that to this end, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria J.S. Okutepa SAN wrote a letter to the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court seeking clarification on the matter.

In his letter dated 26th of January, 2022, he stated “From the correspondence of the NBA above, it appears to me that NBA has taken over your duties as set out in Section 8(2) of the Legal Practitioners Act…”

He further noted, “Within my limited knowledge the NBA is an Association of lawyers and not the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court who has the statutory duty to collect BPF from Lawyers”

In conclusion, he expressed great worry over the directive of the NBA and this decided to seek needful clarifications on how to go about payment of his 2022 BPF.”

Responding to Okutepa’s inquiry, the Acting Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court in a press release sighted by The Lawyer stated that the actions of the NBA has not in anyway contravened the Legal Practitioners Act, 2004.

According to the press release; “With the explanation given by the leadership of the NBA, their action has not in any way contravened the Legal Practitioners Act, 2004 which explicitly confers such role and function on the Chief Registrar of the Court.

The statement added that the Registrar remains the statutory custodian of all issues relating to payment of Bar Practicing Fees and all lawyers are advised to continue paying directly to the extant Supreme Court BPF account, which the NBA leadership has not altered in anyway.

He further noted that “their sole motive for the online payment is to give an innovative boost to the payment method by migrating from the tedious and time-consuming manual payment through the bank to a more modern and less-stressful online payment; and also to serve as a conduit for seamless payment, as it were.