2nd August, 2011
The controversy over the mode of selection of legal practitioners for elevation to the prestigeous Senior Advocate of Nigeria status which disrupted the yearly event last year may not have abated even after the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee recently approved a list of thirty persons to be elevated to the rank by September.
This indication emerged on Tuesday in Abuja where a legal practitioner, Mr Emonena Blessing Ukiri, filed an application at the Federal High Court, asking it to restrain the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu from going ahead to swear-in lawyers conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria for 2011.
Other defendants in the suit are the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, Mohammed Bello Adoke, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee, LPPC.
The lawyer claimed that he was one of the most successful candidates but that he was discriminated against because he came from Delta State.
According to him, the CJN told him that many lawyers from Delta State had been conferred with the award and therefore he should wait till next year.
In the suit filed through his counsel, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, Ukiri asked the court to determine whether the decision of the defendants not to confer the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria on him who came first in the 2010 exercise is not unconstitutional, unconscionable, unlawful, illegal, null, void, discriminatory and of no effect whatsoever for being in wanton violation of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended and the provisions of the Regulations/Guidelines for the Conferment of the rank of SAN.
He wants the court to determine whether the CJN and the other defendants are competent to confer the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria for the year 2011 on anyone when the selection exercise for 2011 had not commenced due to the spill-over of the 2010 exercise into July, 2011 and when no candidate has yet applied for the rank in 2011.
Ukiri also asked the court to determine whether the defendants are bound to observe the principles of natural justice and fair hearing before making any adverse decision against any applicant for the conferment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria against whom an allegation capable of adversely affecting him has been made and whether it is not mandatory for them to have given him an opportunity to be heard in response to the alleged adverse report from the Port Harcourt Branch against him before acting on the alleged adverse report in prejudice to him.
He subsequently sought for a declaration that the removal of his name from the final list of successful Applicants/Candidates for the conferment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria in respect of the 2010 exercise, despite his having come first and, therefore, entitled to be placed among the 1st to 5th successful Applicants in order of merit, in all the “weighted criteriaâ€, on the ground that there was an “adverse report†or “petition†from the Port Harcourt Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association against him, without giving him an opportunity to be heard is discriminatory, unconstitutional and constitutes a gross violation of the Applicant’s right to fair-hearing and needless stigmatization of his person and, therefore, null and void.
Ukiri is also seeking for an order setting aside the decision to drop or remove his name from the final list of successful andidates/applicants to be conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, in respect of the 2010 exercise as well as an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondents, from conferring the rank of SAN in respect of the 2010 exercise, on anyone in Nigeria without first including his name being among the first – 5th successful candidates on the said list in order of merit.
He also wants the court to make an order directing the CJN, AGF and the LPPC to deliver to him a copy of the final list of the successful applicants with the marks scored in order of merit and the certified true copy of the treasury receipt issued to each of the “Successful Candidates†for 2009, 2010 and 2011 and minutes of the LPPC meeting held on 1 February 2010 and 7 July, 2011.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
By Nnamdi Felix / Abuja