Femi Falana, human rights lawyer (SAN), says senior lawyers know “all corrupt judges and court officials”, and that “the information is freely circulated among lawyers”.
He also said members of the public know judges who collect money from them either directly or through lawyers or court clerks.
According to a statement issued by Tayo Soyemi of Falana and Falana Chambers, on Thursday, the human rights lawyer said these in a paper entitled: ‘Access to justice: socio-cultural, economic And geographical limitations thereto-a critique’ which he delivered at an event organised by the Ondo state judiciary.
“If the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is committed to the eradication of judicial corruption, it has the capacity to do so. With 120 branches spread across the country, the NBA can police judges, lawyers and court officials with a view to stamping out corrupt practices,” he said.
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“When the Ghana Bar Association was paying lip service to corruption, a journalist decided to video record judges who were negotiating and collecting bribes. At the end of the recording he exposed, named and shamed the indicted judges. They were promptly investigated by the Ghana Judicial Council and dismissed from the bench.”
He asked the NBA and the National Judicial Council to adopt inbuilt mechanism to remove corruption from the judiciary.
“Because the NBA was condemning corruption without adopting any concrete measures to stop it, the security and anti-graft agencies recently seized the initiative and arrested judges in the dead of the night to the eternal embarrassment of the legal profession. To prevent any further embarrassment of our judges, the NBA and NJC ought to adopt an inbuilt mechanism for exterminating the menace of corruption from the bar and bench,” he said.
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He added that the intervention of the chief justice of Nigeria by establishing special courts to try corruption cases would go a long way in ensuring that justice was done, and also speed up the trial of corruption cases in all out courts.
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