Re: Gombe Area Court Law 2020: A Bold Step In Judicial Reform

By Ahmad Abubakar Dubagari

My yesterdays editorial (available at https://thenigerialawyer.com/gombe-area-courts-law-2020-a-bold-step-in-judicial-reform/) although my ever shortest, but attracted a rich cornucopia of responses from bar, bench and general public. Some of the reponses wholeheartedly accepted our opinion, some accepted with some reservation and others rejected it in toto. There is no space to reproduce all of the responses here. So I will only respond to some issues which I considered ought to be addressed. On my table, I outlined three of them.

 1- Originality of the Bill

In the previous editorial, I have ascribed the then Bill (Now Law) to Hon. Ayala of Gombe State House of Assembly.  The honorable member upon seeing this, he immediately reached me and told me that he didn’t supponsor the Bill. Therefore, he didn’t kept mum and accept the credit of what he didn’t. I commend him on that. What made me to make such assertion was a misconception from me. I have heard the honourable member on air sometimes this year mentioning the Bill. Thus I thought it was his. I later learned that the Bill (now Law) was only committed to his committee on Judicial Matters as executive Bill No. GM/HA/06/01/12. I therefore apologized to the Executive, State House and my readers for this misconception.

2- Bias

I have also been accused of being biased and angled. “Much as I digested your write up on new area courts law, I find it angled, I don’t want to answer you on a public domain because I may be referred to as sided also because I happened to be an area court judge in Gombe.” This allegation came from one of the area court judges, who earned my so much  respect. Another senior lawyer in the state, have also disagreed with me over calling the judges ‘incompetents’ that lack ‘procedural knowledge’. However they agreed with me that there is so much abuse of power occasion from some of the lower court judges. Upon revisiting my statement, I also realized that, without intending to, I disproportionately and reluctantly generalized in calling them incompetent. While its undeniably some abuse powers given, it’s not for the writer to be so generic. There are many of them who have been there since before the writer was born. Some are qualified lawyers. As the writer quoted Holmes J in the previous editorial,  the learning of law has not alwas been logic but experience. There being in the system for this long period of time has equipped them with reasonable experience and qualification to make them ‘competent’. I felt that, when I rework the article in the future, I will correct this unintentional imbalance.

 3- Divestiture of Area Courts Criminal Jurisdiction

A group of area court judges have expressed to this writer that they were not wronged in any way by divestiture of criminal jurisdiction to area courts. However, one of them opined that “a lot need to be looked after for the law to pass the mark, if the law is meant to ease the wrongs alleged on the judges, then you are welcome to yet another marathon.” They further opined that, denying them to try even court contempt tend to downgrade courts of law to a mere market place, which lack decorum. They further reiterated that, this decision was not based on public policy.

A senior lawyer who have read the previous editorial has offered a brief but rich erudite submission on how to shape the area courts instead of completely divesting them the criminal jurisdiction at once. I found his opinion very welcoming. I therefore, decided to share it with you. Enjoy: “I know for sure that the Area Courts Judges in Gombe are fond of abusing their judicial powers and may be other states complain about the same. I was thinking that the new law should have been gradual, for example, that only Courts presided over by lawyers should exercise criminal jurisdiction even if they are Area Courts. This gradual approach would have given us the opportunity to examine the magistrates themselves. This is what is obtainable in the FCT and, in my view, is working well. Thank you.”

AHMAD ABUBAKAR DUBAGARI, IS AN ISLAMIC FINANCE ENTHUSIAST, WRITER AND POET, AUTHOR, WITH STRONG INTEREST IN CAPITAL MARKETS, ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, PROPERTY AND ISLAMIC COMMERCIAL LAWS. HE WRITES FROM AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LAW. HE HAS MANY PAPERS TO HIS CREDIT. HE COULD BE REACHED THROUGH HIS E-MAIL [email protected] OR HIS PHONE 0814 651 5644