SANs kick against immunity for CJN as n’assembly votes on constitution amendments

Just before voting on the amendment to the 1999 constitution begins, some senior advocates of Nigeria (SANs) have opposed the immunity clause for the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), speaker of the house of representatives, and the senate president.

The house of representatives special ad hoc committee on the review of the 1999 constitution had recommended immunity for presiding officers of the national assembly and judicial officers.

Presently, only the president, vice-president, the 36 governors and 36 deputy governors enjoy immunity.

However, some senior lawyers in separate interviews with the Punch on Monday described the attempt to confer immunity on more public officers as unnecessary.

Adegoke Rasheed described the proposal as unnecessary and an attempt to bribe the judiciary.

“The Legislative Privileges Act of 2017 actually tried to confer immunity on presiding officers of the national assembly which we found unconstitutional. I filed a case which is still pending at the federal high court challenging the constitutionality of that, it was pursuant to that they wanted to amend the constitution so that they could insert that provision into the constitution to cure the defect in the Legislative Privileges Act,” he said.

“I believe that it is unnecessary conferment of protection on the national assembly. Extending it to the CJN is an attempt to bribe the judiciary.

“A judicial officer is protected under the constitution so far as a judge can’t be sued by an act done by himself in his official capacity. The same thing goes for every member of the national assembly. That has been an ancient privilege. They can’t be sued for comments made on the floor of the house. That’s enough.”

Another senior advocate, Afam Osigwe said immunity will be abused if it is granted to more public officers.

“In every part of the world, immunity is granted only to the president and even the ones granted to the executives is limited, if you commit an offence while in office it may be a ground to take away the immunity. I don’t see why we should grant immunity to the CJN. It is not done,” Osigwe said.

“We just want to abuse the immunity, is it even not bad enough that we don’t investigate or trial when they leave office and we now want to confer immunity on them while in office? That’s sad. They should not be allowed to get away with this.”

Also, Ifedayo Adedipe, a senior advocate, said the presiding officers of the national assembly do not deserve immunity.

“It is not right to extend immunity to this set of people. We should open the democratic space and access to the court,” Adedipe said.

“If you have a problem with the conducts of presiding officers in the national assembly how are you going to bring them to justice if you confer immunity on them? I do not support it and I do not think it should be passed into law.

“Are you not aware that in some countries sitting prime ministers are being taken to court? It happened in Israel. Are they going to be committing legal infractions that would be taking them to court every now and then? They do not need immunity.”