{"id":25794,"date":"2020-04-07T19:28:12","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T18:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=25794"},"modified":"2020-04-07T19:28:12","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T18:28:12","slug":"group-advises-njc-over-judges-seniority-row-in-enugu-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=25794","title":{"rendered":"Group advises NJC over Judges seniority row in Enugu state"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u25aa <strong>calls for closer look and consideration of relevant extant Enugu State High Court Rules<\/strong><br \/>\nFrom <strong>Chuks Moses<\/strong>, Awka<br \/>\nAn international human rights advocacy group under the aegis of the Igbo Oriental Think-tank has called on the National Judicial Council(NJC) to take a second and closer look at its position on the issue of seniority and ranking of judges in Enugu state, based on extant High Court Rules of the state.<br \/>\nThe group in a press conference held in Enugu Tuesday afternoon noted that in the course of its advocacy and drive for equity, fairness, brotherliness, and foster unity among the contending Nationalities in Nigeria, especially among the peoples of the South East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, they discovered a sensitive issue that bothered on the \u201cseniority amongst the Enugu State High Court Judges\u201d.<br \/>\nAccording its Coordinating Secretary, Dr Kenneth Anozie, &#8220;&#8230;we took a study of it, with relevant extant laws as our guide. Our objective was to unravel the truth, and ensure that the Rule of Law is followed to the letter in other to ensure equity and Justice.<br \/>\nIn the 3-page statement, Dr Anozie disclosed that the advocacy group discovered that the Honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria had in a letter ref No AJC\/S.3\/XXIV\/147 dated Oct 12, 1998 approved and communicated the then Provisional Ruling Council&#8217;s appointment of a list of eleven Judges in Enugu State to the then Military Administrator of the state.<br \/>\nThe letter, Anozie pointed out, stated clearly that \u201cthe appointment of the following in order of precedence as Judges of Enugu State with effect from Sept 17, 1998. In the said letter these were the Judges approved \u201cin order of precedence\u201d; Benedict Egwuatu Agbata, Mrs N.P Emehulu, Fredrick Chukwuemeka Obieze, Kignsley Ngwu Udeh, Mrs Regina Obiageli Nwodo, Elvis Chile Ajaonu, Stanley Chuks Nnaji, Anthony Okechukwu Onovo, Reuben Nwajiobi Onuorah, Godwin Osita Anibueze and Raymond Ozoemena.<br \/>\nThe group, in drawing the attention of the NJC, the Enugu State Government and the public to see and recognize Justice Anthony Okechukwu Onovo as the Number Two judicial officer of the state, next to the incumbent Chief Judge, stated that out of the eleven High Court Judges appointed same day alongside Onovo, only four remain active in the service today. While the other seven have either retired or are deceased. The four still active according to the \u201corder of precedence\u201d are; Hon Justice N.P Emehelu, (The incumbent Honourable Chief Judge of Enugu State), Hon Justice A.O Onovo, Hon Justice R.N Onuorah and Hon Justice A.R Ozoemena.<br \/>\nIt added that in accordance with High Court Rules of Enugu State which states explicitly in Part 11, Section 7(3); &#8220;for the avoidance of doubt, where on the same day two or more persons are appointed to the office of a Judge, they shall have precedence in order in which they took their oath of office\u201d<br \/>\nBased on this, the group said it was therefore clear that Honourable Justice A. O. Onovo is number (2) in the ranking, based on all the relevant laws of Enugu State High Court Rules, and according to the letter of approval sent to the Military Administrator of Enugu State by the then Honorable Chief Justice of Nigeria on Oct 12,1998.<br \/>\nThe Rights group bemoaned that in the course of its investigations, it discovered that the NJC, based on a petition by Hon Justice A.R. Ozoemena, has somehow waded into the matter and even given a position on the subject. It adds that in its letter dated Dec 24, 2019 Ref. NJC\/S.14\/HC\/EN\/11\/1\/188 to the Chief Justice of Enugu State, Hon Justice N.P Emehelu, listing the \u201cOrder of seniority\u201d as below:<br \/>\n<strong>Name<\/strong>.-\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0&#8211; <strong>Date of call to the Bar<\/strong><br \/>\n(1) Hon. Justice N. P. Emehelu. 1981<br \/>\n(2) Hon. Justice A. R. Ozoemena. 1983<br \/>\n(3) Hon. Justice R. N. Onuorah. 1984<br \/>\n(4) Hon. Justice A. O. Onovo. 1987<br \/>\nFrom the foregoing, the NJC and His Lordship, it would be seen did not take into cognizance the High Court Laws of Enugu State, which states categorically in Part 11, Section 7(3) \u201cFor the avoidance of doubt, where on the same day two or more persons are appointed to the office of a Judge they shall have precedence in the order in which they took their oath of office.\u201d<br \/>\nThe Igbo Oriental Think Tank noted that as a rights group founded on equity, good governance and Rule of Law demand that the right things need to be done so that the Temple of Justice should not be seen as an arena to perpetrate injustice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u25aa calls for closer look and consideration of relevant extant Enugu State High Court Rules From Chuks Moses, Awka An international human rights advocacy group under the aegis of the Igbo Oriental Think-tank has called on the National Judicial Council(NJC) to take a second and closer look at its position on the issue of seniority [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":23045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[1160,547,1444],"class_list":["post-25794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","category-news","tag-enugu","tag-njc","tag-seniority"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}