Court nullifies amended Assembly commission law
The Coalition of Lawyers for Injustice has cried out to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, to come to the rescue of the judiciary in Rivers State.
Led by Moses Okino, the lawyers referred to the conflicting court decisions on matters relating to the sack of the state Assembly members that defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) as basis for their position.
The group also called on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and well-meaning stakeholders to rise up against the alleged affront on the legal system and defend the integrity of the judiciary in the state.
The lawyers contended that they would not stand and watch, while the tenets of democracy are imperiled allegedly by the antics of the ruling APC.
They said: “We demand respect for the judiciary and the rule of law. We will take all necessary steps to ensure that this demand is met,” the lawyers noted while reacting to recent developments in Rivers, where a high court ruling overturned the decision of another court, sacking PDP lawmakers for decamping to APC.
They maintained that the brazen affront to the judiciary’s integrity and the rule of law is unacceptable and warrants collective condemnation by well meaning Nigerians.
Justifying the call on the CJN to wade into the matter, they argued: “It is an elementary legal principle that a lower court cannot review or overturn the decision of another lower court or a court of concurrent jurisdiction.
This fundamental tenet of our legal system is being recklessly disregarded by the APC in Rivers State, which seems hell-bent on ridiculing the judiciary and undermining our democracy.”
MEANWHILE, a Rivers State High Court, in Port Harcourt, has declared, as invalid, the Martin Amaewhule-led Assembly’s recent amendment to Section 3 of the Rivers State House of Assembly Service Commission Law, which aimed to remove the governor’s constitutional authority to appoint the Chairman and members of the commission.
In her judgment, Justice Kariba Dagogo Jack of the Rivers State High Court, ruled in favour of the Association of Legal Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the plaintiff, declaring the amended Law No. 3 of 2024 unconstitutional, null and void.
The court held that the amendment, which sought to strip the governor of the power to appoint the chairman and members of the Rivers State House of Assembly Service Commission, was in direct conflict with the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution.
