Fiery activist and ex-Chair of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu has accused the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) of breaching its own rules and criteria in the nomination of Court of Appeal justices.
This is coming on the heels of recent nominations to the Court of Appeal and Odinkalu’s numerous articles stressing the need to return credibility to judicial appointments.
Questioning the integrity of this current nominations, the law teacher in a series of tweets on X (formerly Twitter) drew attention a 19 November 2020 minutes of an emergency meeting of the FJSC where the Court of Appeal President, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, suggested that judges who have not spent five years on the bench and those with less than five years to retirement should not be considered for elevation to the Court of Appeal.
Odinkalu argued that although the FJSC agreed to these benchmarks, recent nominations to the intermediate court indicates that these standards have been jettisoned.
“On 19 November, 2020, the #Nigeria‘s Federal Judicial Service Commission, #FJSC, met in emergency session in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, to consider nominations to the bench of @CourtOfAppealNG requested by the President of the Court, #PCA, Monica Dongban-Mensem. As a criterion for consideration, the PCA proposed & the FJSC agreed that judges who had not done 5 yrs on the bench wld not be eligible for consideration as would judges with less than 5 yrs to retirement.
“As a criterion for consideration, the PCA proposed & the FJSC agreed that judges who had not done 5 yrs on the bench wld not be eligible for consideration as would judges with less than 5 yrs to retirement.
“Last month, the same #FJSC put forward Justice Eleojo Enenche of @fcthighcourt to the @CourtOfAppealNG. But he was only appointed a judge in Nov 2021. That makes him less thn 2 yrs as a judge in total. 9 months of that he spent attached to another judge.
“Justice Enenche worked as a much-liked PA to the CJ of @fcthighcourt. That got him to the bench to begin with in spite of clear rules to the contrary. Now, applicable rules are also going to be dispensed with to get him to the @CourtOfAppealNG.
“Justices Mohammed Liman of @FederalHigh & Lawal Akapo of Lagos High Court, both of whom have also bn nominated for @CourtOfAppealNG wld also fall foul because they do not have more than 5 yrs to retirement.
“Justice Toochukwu Victoria Nwoye of the High Court of Anambra State, also nominated for elevation to @CourtOfAppealNG was only appointed Dec 2019 & is similarly less than 5 yrs on the bench. The question needs to be asked: why is the #FJSC violating its own rules & whose interests is it serving is do it so blatantly?”
