Divergent Opinions Regarding Appointment of Academics to Judicial Offices in Nigeria: A Socio-Legal Approach
Keywords:
Academics, courts, judicial offices, Nigeria, opinion, private legal practitionersAbstract
Competence of academics to become judges has attracted divergent opinions among legal scholars. Intellectually academics have been conducting researches and disseminating the findings of the works in journals. Outside the four walls of the universities, the scholars are helping courts to appreciate difficult legal issues by filing scholars’ brief. They appear before the courts as friends or amici curiae. In the United States, it is a tradition to appoint academics as judges, and there is similar practice in various parts of the world. Nigeria is one of the countries where academics were elevated to become judicial officers or judges of Superior Courts. Late Justice Teslim Elias was an academic appointed as a judicial officer. There are opinions for and against appointment of members of the academia into judicial offices. Proponents of the appointment believe that academics are suitable to be appointed as judges by virtue of their knowledge. On the other hand, those against such appointment are of the view that the academics lack practical experience in the courtroom. This reason makes them unqualified to be appointed judges. This paper has adopted a socio-legal research approach to understand the perspectives for and against appointing academics as judges. Nine members of the legal profession have been interviewed and majority of them have supported the appointment.References
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Amended). 1999.
Denham, The Hon. Mrs. Justice Susan; Kearns, The Hon. Mr. Justice Nicholas J.; Donnell, The Hon. Mr. Justice Donal; Kelly, The Hon. Mr. Justice Peter; Gilligan, The Hon. Mr. Justice Paul; Groarke, The Hon. Mr. Justice Raymond; Linnanne; Her Honour Judge J, J. C. 2014. Judicial Appointment Review Committee Preliminary Submission to the Department of Justice and Equality’s Public Consultation on the Judicial Appointments Process.
Extant Revised NJC Guidelines & Procedural Rules for the Appointment of Judicial Officers of All Superior Courts of Record in Nigeria. 2014.
Fallon, J. R. H. 2012. Scholars’ Briefs and the Vocation of a Law Professor. https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/las002 (accessed 21 July 2018)
Feenan, D. 2008. Judicial Appointments in Ireland in Comparative Perspective. Judicial Institute Journal 1(34): 45.
Kumar, C Raj and Gautam, K. 2019, January 9. The Judiciary Must Try to Diversify the Institution. Hindustantimes. www.hindustantimes.com (accessed July 8, 2019).
O’Dell, D. E. 2015. Why Should Legal Academics not be Judges? cearta.ie (accessed July 21, 2019).
Olofintila, T. 2013. Why more Lecturers are needed on the Bench. The Nation. Retrieved from https:// thenationonlineng.net(accessed 8 July 2019).
Posner, R. 2010. The judiciary and the academy: A fraught relationship. University of Queensland Law Journal 29(1): 13.
Sandstrom, S. L. 2008. An empirical study of Amici Curiae in Federal Court: A fine balance of access, efficiency, and advertisarialism. Review of Litigation: 669–712.
Usman, Dahiru Jafaru, Nurli Yaacob, and Aspalella A. Rahman. 2016. An inquiry on the affordability of legal services and the appropriateness of the regular courts for consumer redress in Nigeria. Beijing L. Rev. 7: 83-94.
Usman, Dahiru Jafaru, Nurli Yaacob, and Aspalella A. Rahman. 2015. Lack of consumer awareness: A major challenge for electricity consumer protection in Nigeria, Asian Social Science 11(24): 240-251.
Yaacob, Nurli; Yeon, Asmah Laili and Abdul Rahman, R. 2017. Workload of academic staff in Malaysian public university: Perspectives of top management. In ILC 2017 - 9TH UUM International Legal Conference 2017, edited by A. H. M. Abdul Rahim, Asmar; Rahman, Aspalella A.; Abdul Wahab, Harlida; Yaacob, Nurli; Mohamad, Ani Munirah; Mohd and Arshad, 873–883. Sintok Darul Aman: Future Academy.
Yaqin, A. 2007. Legal Research and Writing. Selangor: Lexis Nexis.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
It is the author’s sole responsibility to ensure that all work submitted does not infringe on any existing copyright. Authors should obtain permission to reproduce or adapt copyrighted material and provide evidence of approval upon submitting the final version of the manuscript. Views expressed by authors are entirely their own. The Editorial Board shall not be responsible for views expressed and the language used in every article.
