Layi Babatunde

6.0 LEGAL PRACTITIONER’S ROLE PLAYING IN ANTI-CORRUPTION LAWS IMPLEMENTATION
6.1 Leadership Role
Leadership is all about service, selfless service. Lawyers are privileged to have been tutored in several areas of knowledge. They even hold the key to legal issues. So we must lead others in ensuring that Nigeria is not drowned by corruption. In 1979, Justice J. Ola Orojo advised us as lawyers on our role as leaders: his words:

Nigerian legal practitioners must be able not only to perform their traditional functions of catering for the professional needs of the citizens, of administering justice and manning the various legal institutions of the state, but they must also be involved in social change; they must strive to ensure a strict adherence to the rule of law and, among other things, ensure that the newly acquired political power is carefully watched and controlled so that it is not used to protect or perpetuate the status quo or class domination. As the watchdog of the people, they must, through their independence and total commitment to social justice, provide the necessary support to sustain an equally independent and fearless judiciary, the last hope of man for law and order, peace and progress.59

6.2 As a law teacher/Researcher
The law relating to corruption in Nigeria is presently at its evolutionary stage. Statutes, cases and rules are emerging. The lawyer is therefore expected to know the law, even where they are yet to be certain. So he plays the roles of a teacher and researcher. Specifically, the lawyers who are in the academics, particularly criminal law teachers and researchers are expected to extend their role of teaching and researching the law to the emerging area of law of corruption.

Therefore, the relevance of legal research to the fight against corruption cannot be under-estimated. The effective exploitation of information contained in any legal collection can always be attained by means of “Legal research”. The ability to perform legal research is one of the basic skills of a lawyer.60 Legal research and ability to “find the law” is a most useful weapon without which any given lawyer could survive and thrive in such an advertorial judicial system as practiced in Nigeria.61 Chief Theophilus Olakunle Dada, one time Librarian Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies noted in his Valedictory Lecture that:

The legal profession invariably requires certain basic skills such as the power of expression, the effective use of language coupled with dexterity in the art of advocacy. However, these vital attributes may not be fully attained without a proven mastery of the use of the tools of the trade as represented by law books, law reports, journals and periodicals. This in effect means that all members of the legal profession including the law teachers, law school students, post-graduate students and, most importantly, members of the Bar and the Bench should be involved in legal research as a matter of routine.62

6.3 Policy Making and Administration
Legal Practitioners are generally not directly involved in policy conception, formulation and policy making. However, in some critical situations lawyers are either directly involved or form part of a team in government policy formulation.

Where legal practitioners are involved in policy making on corruption, it is important that they bring their legal knowledge to bear on such policy. One area that readily comes to mind is the complex subject of modern criminology. For instance, it may not be enough to make policy to fight corruption, it may also be necessary to understand the underlying factors in the crime of corruption. Thus, a legal practitioner with the knowledge of criminology may guide the policy making team on such issues as: physical and constitutional factors; mental factors in crime; psychology explanations of crime; personality theories about crime; social and cultural factors; the identification and measurement of crime, profiling of offenders; discretion in criminal justice process, and crime and community

Similarly, lawyers involved in the administration of anti-corruption laws and institutions must be seen to be competent and above board in the assignments.

6.4 Advisory Role
Legal Practitioners serve as advisers to individuals, companies, governments and other entities. Where their advisory role relate to legal issues on corruption, lawyers must be guided by knowledge, wisdom, diligence and morals.
6.5 Prosecutorial Role
The prosecutor has a fundamental role of diligent perusing the case file before giving advice, drafting a charge, filing his case and commencing trials.
The power of the prosecutor is well-documented in the 1999 Constitution, the Administration of Justice Act 2011 and the decided cases.
We can only add a moral note. He must not be a persecutor. He must also not soil his hands by compromising his case.
6.6 Defence Counsel Role
The defence counsel in corruption cases must be guided primarily by Rules 14, 15 and 32, Rules of Conduct for Legal Practitioners in Nigeria. These Rules put emphasis on devotion to duty; strong respect for and compliance to all relevant legal principles and laws; and fair play and honourable means of achieving his aim of giving the best service to his client.
At this stage, it is apposite to refer to an opinion expressed by a Lawyer in Indonesia64, which I share that:
“In the fight against corruption lawyers are an important instrument because they are the key actors in our legal system, which is apparently not functioning properly. It is the lawyers who can contribute greatly to liberating our nation from corruption.
All the government’s efforts in the battle against corruption will fail if the majority of lawyers take an opposing stance or act as onlookers…
…lawyers should stand up and share the responsibility for combating corruption.”
Morality naturally comes to play here.

7.0 LAWYER AS A JUDGE & JUDICIAL CORRUPTION
We all know that judges are appointed from the members of the Bar. Indeed it has been said, “that the bench will forever reflect the Bar, as the source from which it is constantly replenished” The Author65 added rather ominously that “As things are, the High Courts up to Supreme run the risk of a decadent future, if the present rate of deterioration at the Bar is allowed to continue unarrested”. This was in 1992! Perhaps avoiding this possibility was why the Commonwealth was motivated, to develop rules for government department including the judiciary. The Commonwealth Heads of Government at its meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2003 agreed and endorsed certain principles for governing three branches of Government in the Commonwealth States. These are contained in a document titled: Commonwealth (Latimer House) Principles on the Accountability of and the Relation between the three branches of Government.66

The objective of these principles is to provide, in accordance with the laws and customs of each Commonwealth Country, an effective framework for the implementation by governments, parliaments and judiciaries of the Commonwealth fundamental values. Specifically on the value of independence of the judiciary, the Commonwealth affirms that:
An independent, impartial, honest and competent judiciary is integral to upholding the rule of law, engendering public confidence and dispensing justice. The function of the judiciary is to interpret and apply national constitutions and legislation, consistent with international human rights conventions and international law, to the extent permitted by the domestic law of each Commonwealth country.67

The national Judicial Council has also made copious rules for the regulation of the conduct of Judges. It only recently launched a Judicial policy68 all in a bid to put things straight as it were.

7.1 Structure of the Judiciary
Broadly speaking, the structure of the judiciary in Nigeria consists of a hierarchy of courts. At the bottom of the ladder are the pre-colonial traditional courts variously called Customary, Area or Islamic (lower Sharia) Courts. They administer traditional laws, or in some cases Islamic laws. They may consist of two or more grades, but they are usually inferior courts and generally, appeals lie from them, sometimes, through a higher grade of traditional court to the High Court. Next are the Magistrates’ or District Courts. Essentially, they administer local statutes and the “received” English law. Appeals from them lie to the High Court.
The Superior Courts of Records under the constitution consist of the customary courts of appeal of a state and the Federal Capital Territory, the Sharia Courts of Appeal of a state and the Federal Capital Territory, a High Court of a state, the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, the Federal High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. Appeals from the High Court, Sharia Court of Appeal or the Customary Court of Appeal lie to the Court of Appeal and from there, to the Supreme Court, which is the final court.69