What We Have is Civil Rule, Not Democracy - Clarke (san).

Byline: Abdulwahab Abdulah

Chief Robert Clarke, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is our law personality of the week.

In this interview, he said that the Appeal Court in Nigeria had in recent times given different interpretations to a particular issue of law, which he said was responsible for the agitations by some Nigerians and lawyers, that governorship election matters should get to the Supreme Court.

He also observed that there can be no stability and accountability in the polity, unless all democratic institutions in the country are working effectively. On the crisis facing the law students in Nigerian law schools, he attributed the problems to corruption, which he said is affecting the quality of lawyers that are produced these days.

He spoke on the conferment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria on deserving Nigerian Lawyers, arguing that the privileges committee responsible for the award needs to verify in detail, claims from those applying for the award, adding that some of those given the award in the first instance, have no chambers of their own.

Excerpts :Some legal practitioners have suggested that appeal in the Governorship and National Assembly elections petition should terminate at the Supreme Court rather than the Court of Appeal. Do you share this position?

Basically, the two courts, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal are reputable courts in the judicial system of this country. Both are also courts of record. So, whether the appeal terminate at the Appeal or Supreme Court, it is neither here nor there. The important thing at the end of the day is that justice must been seen to be done.

Why people are clamoring at the moment that the governorship election matters should not terminate in the Court of Appeal, is due to the wrong signals being sent from the Court of Appeal in relation to judgements delivered by them on some given issues on election cases, whereas there should have been a standard point of law established on such election issues.

You will note that the Court of Appeal has …