Judiciary Deserves the Best Brains, Says Babalakin

• Hails NJC on discipline

The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Dr. Wale Babalakin (SAN), has commended the National Judicial Council (NJC) for its determination to sanitise the judiciary and ensure that judges are fairly treated.

To him, this will attract the best brains to the third arm of government and ensure orderliness in the judiciary for the benefit of the society.

Babalakin said this in Lagos yesterday while delivering a paper, titled: ‘Law and The Society’, as the guest lecturer at the Annual Reunion of Government College Ibadan Old Boys’ Association (GCIOBA).
According to him, the judiciary must be adequately funded to attract the best brains to the bench, like it was in the First Republic, and make it perform optimally.

Babalakin said: “However, the NJC’s budget is dictated by the executives. It can only spend what is made available to it. I have listened to all Chief Justices of Nigeria since Justice Aloma Mukhtar complained about the poor funding of the judiciary. I have been told that some states are unable to pay the full allowance to judicial officers. This is totally unacceptable and unconstitutional. We have to pay judicial officers appropriately and it is my submission that their salaries should be indexed to inflation. In Nigeria today, most people have lost 50 per cent of the value of their earnings to inflation, which implies that judges now earn less than half of their salaries in real value.”

Babalakin, who is an old boy of GCI, lamented the volume of work at the state High Courts, saying: “I believe that most of the jurisdiction being exercised by High Courts in the states can be handled at the magistracy. We need to enlarge the jurisdiction of the magistrate courts to take away some burden of the High Courts, so that the High Court can concentrate on issues that require great attention. We have to place serious emphasis on the hierarchy of courts. Appointment to the Bench must be based on merit. Law is essentially a profession that requires very serious intellectual capacity. The various levels of courts must look up to the courts higher than them in the hierarchy.”
The lawyer also spoke on the federal structure of Nigeria, lamented that creation of wealth was not mentioned anywhere in the constitution, but rather, emphasis was placed on wealth sharing among the three tiers of government.