Appoint judges from SANs - Afe

By Dolapo Ekanade - 02.05.2008

IN a bid to sanitise the nation’s judiciary from corruption, legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, (SAN) has advocated that judges should be appointed only from lawyers conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

Chief Babalola said this on Thursday while delivering a lecture entitled “The Role of the Judiciary in the Sustenance of Democracy in Nigeria,” at the annual May Day lecture organised by the Silver Knights Club, Ibadan, Oyo State.

Chief Babalola, while expressing his disappointment at the endemic level of corruption which had permeated the judiciary, said such appointments would mirror the British example where only the finest gentlemen of the Bar were appointed as judges.

The learned silk linked the corruption and weak judicial system to appointments based both on sentiments and geographical locations.

Citing problems affecting the judiciary in playing a crucial and effective role in the sustenance of democracy, Babalola listed incessant delay, obsolete recording of court proceedings in long hands by judges and failure of judges to recognise themselves as a separate and independent arm of government.

According to him, “Appointments to the Bench in the last 25 years have been subjected to factors not satisfactory to me. Before, these appointments were based on merit, not geographical locations or sentiments.”