Johnson

I agree.

Dear @ARISEtv, @OjyOkpe, @R_abati1990, @ruffydfire Since my name was mentioned in this clip, I have chosen to exercise a public #RightOfReply. I owe you that much. Let me be clear from the start: I will not back down on this issue of the casualisation of judicial standards by a confederacy of disclosed & traceable insider & political interests on all sides. Among my people, there is a name & a saying: "onyemaechi" (Who knows tomorrow)? I bet @R_abati1990 had not read Rule 12 of @njcnig's Judicial #CodeOfConduct before this session. I will encourage him to acquaint himself with it, pls. It is tragic when people who should know better venture into the enterprise of banalising serious issues at the heart of the justice system & its integrity. Yet, we are the first to complain about insecurity & we seem blissfully unaware of the inherent logics of #CauseAndEffect. But I guess it is the judges who have created this mess. And folks think we must be automatonscat the mercy of untheorised & self-serving rulings. I refuse. This is the same country in which Zainab Bulkachuwa - then serving as president of @NGCourtofAppeal in 2019 - thought it was alright for her to preside over the presidential election petition when her husband had just been elected a senator on the ticket of the party whose victory was at issue in the petition. At least one of her sons so ran on the ticket of the party in the same election. Mind you, @SupremeCourtNg had ruled in 2007 that it is parties, not candidates, who run for office in #Nigeria. Yet, Justices of Appeal under her turned in a ruling that said it was kosher for her to do so. In the end public opinion forced her off the panel but at the price of exorbitantly corrosive jurisprudence. Contrary to the claim by @R_abati1990 in this outing, it does not need an imputation on the judge for him or her to be recused. The standard is not actual or active lack of impartiality. It is appearance of lack of impartiality. Let me explain. Lord Hewart said as much in R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy (1924) that "the answer to that question depends not upon what actually was done but upon what might appear to be done." That was why he laid down the standard that justice must not only be done but must be "manifestly & undoubtedly be seen to be done." That is the standard at both common law & under the Constitution. With profound respect, I regret to say that @R_abati1990 has misled the public as to the applicable standard & his claims about that are not particularly well founded. It is no accident, therefore, that he ended up in an entirely convenient destination with no guardrails in either principle or judicial ethics. But judicial decision-making is not dance-music nor situational ethics like he suggests. It is a bounded enterprise constrained by easily ascertained rules. That was why I cited the case of Justice Anthony Aniagolu in 1983. His son is one of your colleagues, @charlesaniagolu. The fact that one has to even argue that Sylvanus Oriji cannot preside over this case is itself the problem. I spare you all the details of his relationships with the Wikes but if I am required to I will. This should be a scandal ordinarily. But we seem to have lost every sense of indignation. Privately, I must say, several senior judges have told me they are scandalized. For the sake of the judiciary, the Chief Justice knows what to do. To my brother, @R_abati1990, we can continue to pretend about these casualisations until we are at the receiving end. All you need do is look at what is happening to a former governor of Kaduna State at the moment & you see the point. Today, we may feel unaffected. Tomorrow may be different. To my brother, @R_abati1990, I say: "onyemaechi"?!