Thank you, Supreme Court for reaffirming your position and the position of law. It is important we remind one another the following for us not to misinterpret the apex court whenever an application to set aside its decision is filed in the future and same is not dismissed.
1. Does the Supreme Court have the power to set aside its judgment? Yes, it has the power to set aside its judgment on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction when the judgment was delivered, if the judgment was obtained by fraud, the court was misled in delivering its judgment, there was a cogent point, fact or law that was meant to be considered but wasn’t considered.
2. Why didn’t the Supreme Court set aside its judgment in the Application filed by APC and its candidates? The Supreme Court didn’t do so because the Applicants were unable to sufficiently rely and prove any of the above grounds. Note, If an Application to set aside the judgment of the court is premised on one or all of the above grounds in the future, the court will be happy and bold to so follow the law. Our people are very funny, Supreme Court might do that in the future and people will start shouting injustice and corruption. Please, know your law or seek knowledge from those you believe in their judgments rather than wallowing in ignorance.
3. The Supreme Court didn’t strike out the Application to set aside its judgment, rather it dismissed it. The effect of the dismissal is that the Application cannot be filed again in the same suit, if it had been struck out, It could be relisted provided that the Application hasn’t been heard on the merit. Even if the Application was heard on the merit and the court made an order of striking out, it has the effect of dismissal.
4. Lastly, the punitive cost awarded against the counsel personally was not new in the Supreme Court. The apex court ordered same with bitter words in PROFESSOR STEVE UGBA AND ANOR V. GABRIEL SUSWAN AND ORS. SUIT NO: SC 191/191A/ 2012 Consolidated, judgment delivered on 9th May, 2014. In this case, the Supreme Court dismissed the application which sought to set aside the ruling of the Supreme Court and awarded punitive costs in the sum of N 3,000,000.00(Three Million Naira) against the applicant’s counsel personally for bringing a purely academic and frivolous application before the court. The court makes an order of punitive costs if the counsel did what they weren’t meant to do, such as in the above case by filing academic application, in the opinion of the court
On the four points above, please read with caution the decision of the court in UGBA V. SUSWAN(SUPRA).
I have said before today that the Application is dead on arrival(those following my updates can corroborate) but I will never join team of lawyers and members of the public who are abusing and using derogatory words against the person of the respected senior members of the Bar, Chief Wole Olanipekun,SAN and Chief Afe Babalola, SAN. It is not wrong to use the available options in law to question the law and develop the law. What I dislike and frown at is calling the Justices of the Supreme Court different names. It is bad. Some of us will not take that, today we are in the Bar, we may luckily and readily find oursleves on the Bench tomorrow when we would not have the opportunity to defend ourselves in the public except to use law.
Morakinyo Olasupo is a Lagos-based Legal Practitioner. He can be reached via: [email protected] or +2348162239050.
