allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Judicial Commission Queries Lawmakers' Power to Recall Sacked Magistrate (Page 1 of 1)

Nigeria: Judicial Commission Queries Lawmakers' Power to Recall Sacked Magistrate

DELTA State Judiciary Service Commission has challenged the authority of the Delta State House of Assembly to recall a former magistrate in the state, who was dismissed by the Commission after a Board of Inquiry was set up to look into the allegations of incompetence and corruption leveled against him by an aggrieved medical doctor found him culpable and meted out disciplinary action.

The Commission in a letter, signed by its Acting Secretary, Mrs. M.O. Omovie maintained that the lawmakers had no locus standi to look into the matter. The House of Assembly had in a controversial circumstance, in February recalled the magistrate who was dismissed by the Commission in 2007 following a complaint to it by the sacked magistrate to the House.

He was downgraded by a step down from his previous level and the Commission was ordered to reinstate him.

The citizen, Dr. Lawrence Omo-Aghoja who wrote the petition that earned the magistrate his dismissal in the first instance was not contacted by the Committee of the House that re-opened the matter to give any evidence and expectedly, he is also raising dust, accusing the lawmakers of compromising justice.

Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Dr. Olise Imegwu confirmed in an interview with Vanguard in his office in Asaba that, "There is a letter sent to the House by the Acting Secretary of the Judicial Service Commission", adding, "I have minuted it to the Director of Legal Department of the House to look into the issues raised, regarding the decision of the Committee and the House because the House looked at it and adopted the report. So it is a House matter now, it is no longer that of the Committee.

"I am expecting a report from our legal department, once I get the report, I will study it but one thing I know that was raised in the letter was that the House was not supposed to look into the matter, I think I disagree on that because the Constitution is clear as to what the House can do, it can investigate anything by virtue of Section 128 or anything that we suspect that there is basis for waste, misappropriation and fraud.

"So, the House has the right to do what it has done but whether it was done properly or not as claimed in that letter from the Judicial Service Commission is what I am going to further look at by the time I get the report from our legal department", he asserted.

He said that that he was already in receipt of a letter from Dr. Omo-Aghoja complaining about the decision taken by the House and that it was being looked into, explaining that the dismissed magistrate brought a petition to the House, and it was on that basis that the Committee was drafted to investigate and submit a report to the House.

He said the lawmakers would be bold enough to review their decisions if they found any reason to, saying: "For now, I would want to reserve further comments on the matter until I receive a report from our legal department. You know the House has to be properly guided when taken its decisions and I don"t want to speak when the facts are not before me".

Meanwhile, Dr. Omo-Aghoja has raised several posers on the matter for the House to ponder. In a statement, made available to Vanguard, weekend, he said,

"The House Committee mentioned repeatedly that the dismissed magistrate exercised his discretion in granting bail. And that their very versed lawyer confirmed this and they, indeed, cited some authorities. But what was missing was that they did not mention that discretion must be exercised judiciously and judicially, and not in vacuum".

"The fact is that at the time of arraignment and plea, the magistrate granted the accused person bail in the sum of N70, 000.00 and one surety in like sum, the surety must be a landed property owner. This was at a time when the accused person was presumed innocent until the contrary is proved.

After conviction, the magistrate granted bail to the accused person in the sum N300, 000.00 and two sureties. The magistrate deliberately refused to make ownership of landed property a condition for bail after conviction. Therefore, they (sureties) had nothing at stake with which they will be held accountable to the judiciary in the event that the accused person jumped bail.

"This is a clearly premeditated and well thought out action to ensure that the accused person and the sureties completely disappear without recourse to justice.

The defense counsel (O.C. Egbunuje) did confirm this when he boasted to my father that the action was agreed between himself and the magistrate and that there was nothing anybody can do about it", Omo-Aghoja said.

"Worse still was that the residences of the sureties were never verified and further investigation revealed that the addresses provided by the sureties were fake in that the residents of those houses confirmed that the sureties never lived there. Immediately after bail, the accused person absconded and his appeal was struck out by the appeal court. Because it was contrived, the accused person could not be found to serve his prison term".

"The sum of N2, 800.00, being transmission fees of the record of proceedings from the magistrate court to the high court was not paid by the accused person at the time of his release by the magistrate. This was a ploy to ensure that the records of proceeding were not transmitted to the High Court

"After the High Court ruling, the former magistrate refused to issue a bench warrant, it was after repeated visit by myself and the state counsel that he issued a bench warrant the was in most confusing manner against the accused and purported sureties.

The accused name appearing in all the columns and the accused passport placed in the wrong position", he added.Dr. Omo-Aghoja asserted that it was funny that the House found it expedient to describe him as an outsider in a matter in which he was directly impacted with the outcome of the dismissed magistrate"s actions, saying, "I certainly wonder what they are talking about or should I call it confusion or lack of understanding of what an outsider is in this context".

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