Recently, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad, decried the lack of financial independence of the judiciary. The jurist also used the occasion marking the beginning of the 2019/2020 legal year of the Supreme Court and the inauguration of 38 new Senior Advocates of Nigeria, to make case for the independence of the judiciary. While we welcome the concerns of the CJN, we also urge all the stakeholders to ensure the independence of the three arms of government as enshrined in the extant 1999 Constitution.
We say this because democracy as a system of government recognises that the three arms of government should have their separate roles and powers and should, therefore, work independently of one another. We equally believe that the best way to guarantee this independence to the judiciary, often referred to as the “last hope of the common man,” is through its financial independence.
For instance, Section 84 (1-4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) might have envisaged this when it provided that the salaries, emoluments and other financial requirements of the judiciary shall be as a first line charge to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation. This means, in effect, that the judiciary shall not be subjected to the whims and caprices of the other arms of government, whether the executive or the legislature, in order to draw from their explicitly approved budgets.
But that may only be as far as it gets on paper. In reality, the executive arm often gets in the way. As we all know, budgetary provisions are at best, estimates, as they are still subject to actual earnings and accruals to government in the course of the budget year. This reality gives room for manipulations of the judiciary by the executive arm of government and their agents. The judiciary, as an important leg of the tripod, is often relegated to the background and hardly ever gets its due.
However, the latter day tendency of judicial officers to live the good life, contrary to the oath of self-sacrifice, self-denial and Spartan discipline, associated with the profession in the heydays is regrettable. Gone are the days when judges were hardly seen anywhere outside, much less on the social scene. That has changed lately.
As a recent example, the country may not have recovered from some of the shocking reports that came out of the early morning raids of some of the homes of our judges at the highest levels of the judiciary sometime ago. Even if opinions were sharply divided then as to the methods adopted by the Secret Service agents, it was unsettling for many that judges could give as defence for unlikely wealth and affluent lifestyles, engagements in businesses, commerce and trade ordinarily unbecoming of the ideal lifestyle of a judge. As a judge, the occupant often sits literally on matters of life and death, and therefore is expected to be sober, frugal, circumspect and introspective at all times. It is the sacred oath, which those who desire the office are expected to consciously take and after which they are not expected to crave the exuberances and wide privileges that other professions may confer. According to the common parlance, like Cesar’s wife, the judge must be above board.
It is good that the CJN is conscious of the sacred mandate of the judiciary and has ensured that this vital arm of government is committed to its independence as enshrined in the constitution. It is not only a legal provision, but also a moral obligation. Where the independence of the judiciary cannot be guaranteed in any society, the result may likely be a descent to anarchy.
We certainly do not want this for our country. That is why we urge the executive branch at all levels of government to ensure the independence of the judiciary and stop the abuse of their privileged offices. The abuse of the judiciary by the executive cannot be in line with the provisions of the constitution.
The framers of the constitution, to all intents and purposes, must have had a situation in mind where all arms of government work independently, even if harmoniously to deliver the much-desired dividends of democracy to the people.
This would require a seamless cooperation of the various arms of government where no one deliberately stands as a cog in the wheel of progress of another.