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Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear about 14 pre-election appeals on the grounds that they were caught by the amendment to Section 285 of the Constitution (aka 4th Alteration Act Number 21 of 2017), which came into effect on June 7, 2018.
Many are wondering why the retrospective effect?.. Justice Tanko Mohammed said the new law, being a procedural law, assumes immediate effect.Almost all lawyers to the appellants in the appeals expressed discomfort about the court’s position. They all also said they have not read the court’s judgments in SC/307/2018 and SC/308/2028, which the Supreme Court said contains its position and the current position of the law on the issue.
The amendment to Section 285 of the Constitution required the trial court to determine pre-election cases with 180 days and gives the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court 60 days each to determine such cases. It also provides that such appeals are filed with 14 days of the delivery of the judgment to be appealed.
In the about 14 different rulings yesterday, two panels of the Supreme Court, headed by Justices Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed and Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, asked the appellant lawyers, including Alex Iziyon (SAN), to withdraw their appeals.
The court proceeded to strike out each of the appeals and refrained from making any consequential order. It said, since the appeals were caught by the alteration, the court no longer has jurisdiction to act on them or look into them, except striking them out of its list of case.
The court said the effect of the 4th Alteration Act Number 21 was that all pre-election appeals that were not determined within the stipulated 60 days have become spent (no longer valid).
The two panels that sat were assigned to conduct “special court sitting” to clear the court’s list of all pending pre-election appeals relating to the 2015 elections that were still pending before the court.
