The former President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba has rebuked the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) for claiming that it was of equal jurisdiction the Federal High Court.
Agbakoba was reacting to the aforementioned claims by the CCT, which were made after the Senate President, Bukola Saraki obtained a High Court injunction stopping the CCT from arraigning him on charges of false declaration of assets.
Agbakoba said: “There are two kinds of courts in Nigeria, superior and inferior. All the superior courts are defined in Section 6 of the constitution; it does not include the Code of Conduct Bureau, it does not include the National Industrial court.
“The Code of Conduct Bureau is not a superior court; it is an inferior court and because it is an inferior court, it is amenable to the judicial review jurisdiction of a superior court of record like the Federal High Court.”
The Federal High Court, he said had power to review the judicial work of the Code of Conduct Bureau because it is an inferior court.”
Also reacting to the development, renowned lawyer, Ebun Adegboruwa said the actions of the CCT was an assault on the rule of law.
He said: “What the Code of Conduct Tribunal did in spite of the order of the High Court amounts to judicial abuse of the due process of the rule of law and amounts to judicial rascality on the part of the serving judge of Code of Conduct Tribunal.
“It will amount to total anarchy for the parties affected by an order to decide whether or not to obey the order. So, to that extent, the bench warrant issued against the Senate President is ultra vires, it has no place in law and cannot be enforced, because if the order of the High Court to the tribunal was not enforced also the bench warrant of the the tribunal can not be enforced.”
