Adenipekun underscores importance of election petition tribunals

A legal icon, Adebayo Adenipekun (SAN), has said Election Petition Tribunals are very crucial and significant integral part of the electioneering process.

He said it is imperative in order to forestall post election violence in order to ensure peace and order and also sustain democracy and its institutions.

Adenipekun who expressed this view in an interview with The Guardian at the weekend said that the greatest part of this responsibility rests on the Bar and the Bench whose members, he noted “are the sole guiding angels and apostles in the much revered temple of justice.”

The senior lawyer was of the view that for justice to be appropriately served, operators at both the Bar and the Bench needed to effectively acquaint and equip themselves with every detail guiding events immediately after election results had been announced, winners emerged and dissatisfactions expressed against the election.

The legal icon who commented on his book Digest of Election Petition Cases; said the need to offer some measures of assistance to both member of the Bar and the Bench challenged him to write the book. “From the inception of the civilian regime in 1999, I had the privilege to be intensely involved in a number of election petition cases.

I afterwards decided to reduce my experience into a handy reference material for the bar and the bench. Consequently, sometime in the year 2011, I authored the book, Digest of Election Petition cases.”

“Since the publication of the first edition, there have been changes to the law and pronouncements by the Courts which I have decided to include in a revised edition. I was particularly stirred to revise the work due to remarkable comments which accompanied the First Edition”, he explained.

Adenipekun is of the view that lawyers handling election petitions must be Mathematical in timing with a view of the very short time allotted to it in the New Electoral Act. “One unique characteristic of election petition is that time is of the essence.

Unlike in civil and criminal cases where a case may last for a period of between three and five years, election petition cases are expected to be concluded within months. With the new amendment to the constitution, election petition cases are now required to be disposed off within 180 days.

A lawyer handling election petition cases must have the principles, authorities and their citation at his fingertips, which are well facilitated in this works.” “The dicta of the justices in this works are quoted verbatim without embellishment. Where I need to make comments, I did so after quoting the words of the justices. The book also contains the New Electoral Act and the Practice Directions in order to assist lawyers in making quick references”, he stated.