Stop delaying corruption cases through technicalities – CJN warns lawyers

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Stop delaying corruption cases through technicalities – CJN warns lawyers

The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, said legal practitioners should stop causing undue delay of corruption cases by technicalities.

Mohammed said this on Wednesday in a paper delivered at a Roundtable organised by the Rule of Law Development Foundation in Abuja


The speech was delivered on his behalf by Justice Sylvester Ngwuta.

The discussion was entitled ` The Remit of Criminal Courts and the Role of Legal Practitioners in relation to Corruption Cases under the Existing Law.“

The CJN said that the judiciary in had recent years evolved a role that transcended mere adjudication,

“ There is a corresponding need for our legal practitioners to shun undue delay by technicality, which is often characterised by the use of frivolous applications.’’


He said similarly they should avoid “unnecessary trips to the appellate courts in search of appeals on nebulous or inconsequential points of law especially where same has been pronounced upon in our courts”.

Mohammed noted that in fulfilling their constitutionally mandated role of upholding the rule of law, lawyers must also become protectors of the constitution; the last hope of the common man.

Mohammed further said that “the court must ensure that it is quick to enforce all constitutional rights where infringed or in danger of being infringed.

“We cannot continue a culture of calumny all in the guise of fighting corruption, or defending our clients regardless of the cost to our collective reputations as ministers in the temple of justice,” Mohammed said.