Lawyer Warns Of Anarchy, Urges Supreme Court To Rein In Court Of Appeal Over Pre-Election Jurisdiction

Constitutional lawyer, Dr Daniel Bwala, has called on the Supreme Court to avert anarchy by setting the records straight on the superiority of its judgment on the incapacity of election tribunals to look into pre-election cases.

Bwala while speaking on AIT’s Kaakai programme on Monday morning,monitored by our correspondent in Jos, warned that for the decision of the Court of Appeal to take over jurisdiction in the pre-election matters concerning the Plateau State elections could be a threat to judicial order as it could set a pattern for lower courts to undermine settled law as pronounced by the apex court.

The legal luminary, while putting aside the settled precedence of the Supreme Court that the All Progressive Congress (APC) was an interloper by questioning the nomination of candidates by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said that the court had already settled the issue of pre-election matters being outside the purview of election tribunals.

He said that such pre-election matters according to the apex court could only be determined at the Federal High Court prior to elections.

He said, “It is important that the judiciary should set the records straight because once the Supreme Court has settled a matter you have no choice, you have to follow it.

“Because there is a precedent; we are saying, how can the Supreme Court say this is it and this court did not abide by the decision of the Supreme Court because we are told that under the doctrine of judicial precedence that courts are bound by the decisions of superior courts.

“If the Supreme Court says…once the law is settled by the decision of the Supreme Court it becomes a law that cannot be changed except the legislature in the next legislative cycle pass a law to change it.

“That law is binding on authorities and also binding on courts below them and it becomes a final law and any disobedience to that attracts the anger of the courts.”