As a reporter covering the judiciary, I attended several workshops and seminars organized for those that society has placed over us as priests in the temple of justice. We call them judges because they judge us. At some of the conferences and workshops, what constituted the qualities that should be found in someone who had been elevated to become a judge were discussed. I may have forgotten many of those qualities but I remember clearly that judges were expected to conduct themselves with self-respect while engaging the public. However, the quality that my mind has managed to retain is the one that says judges are expected to live a reclusive life.
But with the public display of gangsterism by the chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Mr. Danladi Umar, who was caught on camera fighting at Banex Plaza, Abuja, a market square that attracts thousands of people each trading day, I was forced to go read again what constitutes the qualities of a judge. See what I found: Judicial temperament, intelligence, ethics, courage and integrity, experience and education, suitability to workload, continuing legal education, ability to communicate, civic and professional responsibility, health and character. On these qualities, I judge Justice Umar.
The above 10 qualities were espoused by Steven Platt, a founding and managing member of The Platt Group “a group of experienced and respected retired appellate and trial court judges, attorney adjudicators, renown and respected neuro-psychologist and sophisticated community mediators.”
From a layman’s point of view, if we evaluate Justice Umar’s conduct at a market space, and followed by the ‘press statement’ issued on his behalf on March 30, 2021, signed by Ibraheem Al-Hassan, who identified himself as “Head, Press and Public Relations, Code of Conduct Tribunal Headquarters, Abuja,” one may conclude that the tribunal chairman ought not to wear the toga he currently wears because he fails on all 10 points.
For instance, if Justice Umar was judicially temperate, he would have controlled his emotions, knowing that he was in a public market, especially a market square where information and communication technology equipment was on sale. He also ought to have suspected that some shops in that market may have installed closed-circuit cameras with capacity to capture actions within a certain radius. He failed his temper here. Short-fused persons often fail as judges because they easily become erratic and a prone to avoidable errors.
Secondly, if he were intelligent as thought, he ought to have known that he needed not drag himself into a mud fight. As a judge, society placed him way above the ‘maiguard’ he engaged. Therefore, he debased his learning by coming so low to fight a security guard. Intelligence here is not about the books. When institutions of learning award certificates in learning, they often have this striking line, which reads that the candidate has been found worthy “in character and leaning.” This means that the quest to achieve academic intelligence includes intelligence, which helps the individual build his/her character. Failure to build the character puts a huge question on ones learning. So, intelligence, natural and academic, helps build character. Justice Umar rubbished his at Banex.
Third, Justice Umar disappointed the ethics of his profession. Judge Mindaugas Šimonis, an Appeals Court judge at the Kaunas Regional Court in Lithuania, as well as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Vytautas Magnus University, writing on ethics as they affect a judge, said: “The activity of courts and judges requires the highest professional standards. In the constant endeavor to strike the right balance of competing interests, it is necessary for the modern judge to be wise, sensitive, and knowledgeable not only in legal matters but also in the spheres of economy, social security, sociology, psychology, etc. In addition to having the highest professional standards, judges must continuously follow scientific, social and economic developments.”
By engaging in a fight in a marketplace, Justice Umar showed lack of understanding of the psychological balance that is required of a judge.
On the fourth score, Justice Umar abused his courage and integrity. As a priest in the temple of justice, he ought to be at his highest in the display of courage and integrity to refrain from taking any action, irrespective of the level of provocation. As a judge, litigants would work to provoke him into erratic decisions. By fighting a security guard, who might have provoked him, the judge lost his bearing on the issue of courage. With that, he also abused his integrity as a judge. He could have walked away and kept his integrity intact.
On experience and education, Justice Umar clearly showed that he may have been educated as to rise to become a judge of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, but he failed in his scholarly duties to have allowed that ‘press statement’ to be issued on his behalf. He did not prove his education with the release of that statement. In the media world, whatever statement an aide issues on behalf of the principal, is considered, and rightly too, as actually the voice of that principal. The statement mutilated the English language. It also exhibited a deep-seated lack of understanding of the issues of Nigeria’s unity. By referring to some persons as “Biafran boys,” Justice Umar displayed lack of experience, ethnic bias and a mindset, which would make it difficult for anyone from the South East region to stand trial before him. He was derogatory and judgmental in the usage. He has thus lost the fecundity of mind to preside over his office.
Is the judge, therefore, still suitable to for the workload of his office? He may still be. But his temperament, inability to restrain himself and, ultimately, the publication of the ‘press statement’, questions his suitability for the workload before him. Are litigants assured of fecund, sound and reasonable judgments from him? His action in the market square and the ‘press statement’ raise fears.
While the judge may need more legal education to build his character and conduct in marketplaces and help him to understand and appreciate his place in society, he may need more education, also, to help him manage his temper so as to mingle better with the lowly of society. He needs more psychological education to help him manage himself and those around him. Perhaps, there is need also to introduce some lectures in the English language to enable him read and manage badly-written press statements, which would be issued on his behalf. Besides, he needs to work out a programme of continuing education, too, for his image minders. It is obvious that they even need the education more than he does. This will enable him and his perception managers to develop the ability to communicate in simple understandable English language.
Finally, the judge failed in his civic and professional responsibility. By fighting in a marketplace, he tars his professional colleagues with a new black brush. As a judge, it is part of his civic responsibility to help ensure order in society. He failed here. His action could have dove-tailed into a mob action, which could also have gone out of control, resulting in a wider distortion of the peace of society. Imagine that persons sympathetic to the security guard rose in his defence and decided to lynch the judge, or even carry out mass action on his official vehicle? By his action, he also put his police orderly and any other person with him in the line of danger even where he did not care about his own life. For a society where poverty and deprivation have negatively impacted the social stability of many citizens, a ‘big man’ attacking a ‘poor man’ is an open invitation to mob action by the army of desperately angry and volatile citizens who may want to let off steam.
On the tenth quality, health, I have nothing to say as I am not a physician.