A human rights activist and lawyer, Hameed Ajibola Jimoh, Tuesday castigated prosecution lawyers for attempting to dictate to the Chief Justice of Nigeria who he should assign cases to.
According to the human rights lawyer, the Honourable Chief Justice has discretionary power to consider among the panel of judges under his control those that will best perform quick dispensation of justice.
He said, “It is not the duty of a prosecution to dictate to the Chief Justice on who to give cases to. For me, it is a form of corrupt practice for a prosecution to try to determine that.
“It is not also within their power to write the CJ for the transfer of certain case, in fact, doing that could also be a good ground for the defendant too to ask for a transfer of matter or case as enshrined under the constitution.
“So for such a defendant to ask either by himself or through his lawyer who is representing him in that particular case to say that he or she is not comfortable appearing before a particular judge is something else.
Continuing, he added: “If allegation of bias is what has happened and as a matter of natural justice, the Honourable CJ is bound to re-assign, take away or withdraw such matter if it has already been assigned and if not, he would use his discretion judicially and judiciously by transferring the matter for another judge to handle and by so doing, justice would be seen to have been done.”
