The Court of Appeal in Abuja will on Tuesday, August 20, hear three appeals by the former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen against the judgment of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, (CCT) that ordered his removal from office in 2019.
The Court of Appeal informed parties of the hearing date in a notice issued by the court’s Registry, which The Nation saw on Monday.
The notice reads: “Please take notice that the above matter is listed for hearing on Tuesday the 20th day of August, 2024 at 9 o clock in Court Appeal, Abuja division. Please take note that this serves as a hearing notice”.
The appeals, The Nation learnt, were filed in 2019. They are marked: CA/ABJ/375/2019, CA/ABJ/376/2019 and CA/ABJ/377/2019. The appeals have the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the sole respondent.
By the appeals, Justice Onnoghen is, among others, praying the Court of Appeal to set aside the judgment rendered by the CCT on April 18, 2019, sacking him from office.
He is contending, among others that the CCT was without the requisite jurisdiction, was biased and allegedly denied him a fair hearing.
The CCT had, in its judgment, convicted Onnoghen in all the six counts contained in the charge on which he was tried on allegations of breach of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers.
In its lead judgment delivered by the then Chairman, Danladi Umar, the CCT ordered Onnoghen’s immediate removal from office as the CJN.
It also stripped him of all offices he earlier occupied, including as Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC), and Chairman of the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC).
The tribunal also ordered the forfeiture of his five bank accounts and the money in the accounts which Onnoghen did not declare in his asset declaration form submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, an agency of the federal government.
Onnoghen, in his appeals, maintained that the CCT panel erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice against him when it failed to decline jurisdiction to entertain the six-count against him.
He contended that the CCT Chairman ought to have recused himself from presiding over his trial.
In his seven-point reliefs, Onnoghen applied for an order setting aside his conviction as well as quashing the order for the forfeiture of his assets and to discharge and acquit him of all the charges levelled against him.
Listing some of the particulars of error in the CCT’s verdict, Onnoghen argued that he was a judicial officer at the time the charges were filed against him on January 11, 2019, and as such cannot be subjected to the jurisdiction of the lower tribunal.
“0n the authority of Nganiiwa v. FRN (2018) 4 NWLR (Pt. 1609) 30: at 340. 341 only the National Judicial Council (NJC) has the power to discipline the Appellant for misconduct and not the lower tribunal.
“The lower tribunal had in the case of FRN V. Sylvester Nwali Nguta in charge No: CCT/ABJ/01/2017 delivered on 9th January 2018, affirmed the position of the Court in FRN Nganjiwa v. FRN and dismissed the charges and acquitted and discharged Justice Ngwuta being a Judicial Officer subject only to the discipline of the National Judicial C0uncil.
“The lower tribunal has no jurisdiction over serving judicial officers such as the appellant, save the National Judicial Council.
“The Motion on Notice dated 14th January 2019, challenging jurisdiction ought to be granted in all material particular as it purports to save the lower tribunal of a needless futile exercise.
“The lower tribunal erred in law when it dismissed the Appellant’s Application seeking the chairman to recuse himself from further proceedings on the ground of real likelihood of bias and thus occasioned a miscarriage of justice.
“The Appellant has alleged that the chairman of the lower tribunal is biased towards him as a result of open remarks in the tribunal as well as how the proceedings were being conducted.”
Contrary to the CCT finding, Onnoghen, said he did not admit the fact of non-declaration of Assets from 2005 as the Justice of the Supreme Court, adding that he only stated that he did not declare in 2009 as required because he forgot.
Onnoghen challenged the order for the confiscation of his assets because the assets were legitimately acquired, as against the provisions of paragraph three of section 23 of the CCB Act which only permits the seizure of such assets “if they were acquired by fraud.”
He faulted the failure of the prosecution to present the petitioner, Denis Aghanya, before the tribunal whose petition led to the charges against him.
Nation