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NBA, NJC can check corruption in judiciary if they’re serious- Falana

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Senate summons of Custom boss Ali unconstitutional, unjustified, Falana claims

Femi Falana, human rights lawyer has stated that the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) could check the scourge of corruption within the judiciary if they were serious about sanitizing it, claiming that senior lawyers knew “all corrupt judges and court officials”, and that “the information is freely circulated among lawyers”.

Falana added that some members of the public also knew corrupt judges who were engaged in the practice of collecting money from them either directly or through their lawyers or the court clerks.

Falana’s views were contained in a statement issued Thursday by Tayo Soyemi of Falana and Falana Chambers as part of thoughts expressed in a paper entitled, ‘Access to justice: socio-cultural, economic And geographical limitations thereto-a critique’ which he delivered at an event organised by the Ondo State judiciary.

He said, “If the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is committed to the eradication of judicial corruption, it has the capacity to do so. With 120 branches spread across the country, the NBA can police judges, lawyers and court officials with a view to stamping out corrupt practices.

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“When the Ghana Bar Association was paying lip service to corruption, a journalist decided to video record judges who were negotiating and collecting bribes. At the end of the recording he exposed, named and shamed the indicted judges. They were promptly investigated by the Ghana Judicial Council and dismissed from the bench.

“Because the NBA was condemning corruption without adopting any concrete measures to stop it, the security and anti-graft agencies recently seized the initiative and arrested judges in the dead of the night to the eternal embarrassment of the legal profession. To prevent any further embarrassment of our judges, the NBA and NJC ought to adopt an inbuilt mechanism for exterminating the menace of corruption from the bar and bench”.

Falana dded that the intervention of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen,  by establishing special courts to try corruption cases, would go a long way in ensuring that justice was done, while also speeding up the trial of corruption cases in courts.

 

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