Hottestgistnaija.com
The Nigerian Legal system without a doubt is one that is still developing. But as I have always maintained, a system is only as good as the humans behind. Moreso, for as long as we do not realize and appreciate the essence of the legal system being one that should be for the benefit of the citizens in the advancement of social justice, we would continue to lag behind and the interest of the citizens would continue to suffer.
To dive straight into it, the essence of this write up is to call to attention the need to improve law/judgment reporting under the Nigerian judicial structure. The reason behind this call is simply because there was a matter on employment relation that was decided by the Supreme Court on the 2nd of December, 2022 but was only reported on the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports Platform in July 2024. The delay in the report is not the main grouse, it is the injustice that the delay in the reporting has caused litigants whose cases had been wrongly dismissed between 2021 – 2024 owing to the fact that judges of the National Industrial Court had not been aware of the judgment of the Supreme Court delivered on 2nd December. 2022.
For sake of clarity, one of the principle regulating access to the court is that the case to be brought before the court must not be caught up by a statute of limitation, subject to certain exceptions. Another principle is that of judicial precedent whereby the decision of a higher court binds the lower court. In the realm of employment cases, there had always been a quagmire as to whether or not statute of limitation such as the Public Officers Protection Act (POPA), applies to cases of employment. The Back and forth has always brought about different outcomes for litigants because the Supreme Court does not have a settled position in that regard and it is wherever their decision swings that the National Industrial Court is bound to follow.
Within the last ten years, there has been a dangling position of the Supreme Court on the matter. As far back as 2015, the Supreme Court had in the case of University of Jos v Dr. Sani Muhammad Adam (2015) 5 ACELR 106 held with exception that the Public Officers Protection Act renders a cause of action based on termination of employment statute barred and unenforceable where brought outside the prescribed three months period.
By 2019, the same Supreme Court came up with a decision in the case of N.R.M.A. & F.C. v Johnson (2019) 2 NWLR (Pt. 1656) SC 247 which suggests that cases on contract of service are not to be caught up by statute of limitation including POPA. Although with some sort of ambiguity which I critiqued in another article, Judges of National Industrial Court nonetheless started to sway their decisions in favour of the 2019 position to proceed with cases of employment on ground that they are not caught up with statute of limitation.
By January 2021, the same Supreme Court had in the case of Michael Idachaba & Ors v. The University of Agriculture, Makurdi & 4 Ors. (2021) LPELR-53081 (SC) changed the direction and goal post again by holding that limitation law applies to contract of service. I personally relied on this authority in having a case dismissed sometime in 2023. A twist of fate is that as I write this piece, I await two pending rulings at the National Industrial Court on the subject and I am not sure what the outcome would be in view of the uncertainty in law. I have to, as quickly as possible, bring to the attention of the Judges what I just found on the platform of the NWLR.
The judges of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) had since 2021 been clinging onto the authority of Idachaba in dismissing cases caught up by statute of limitation. In fact, the President of the National Industrial Court in his authored text book titled “Labour Adjudication in Nigeria: The Present and the Future”, published in 2023 posited in page 37 that “the new law is that the limitation law applies to contract of service i.e. employment contracts”.
Although the erudite President condemned the fact that the case of Idachaba failed to reckon with the decision of the Court in N.R.M.A. & F.C. v Johnson and never said it was moving away from it, what is worrisome is that the publication was made at a time when the Supreme Court had already presented a position different from what was said in idachaba’s case.
Unbeknownst to so many legal stakeholders, including the President of the NICN, the Supreme Court had, since the 2nd of December, 2022 in the case of Rector Kwara Poly v. Adefila (2024) 9 NWLR (Pt. 1944) 529, negated the position held in Idachaba’s case by restating that Public Officers (Protection) Law does not apply to breach of contract cases as it was not intended by the legislature to apply to contracts. The contract in question being one of contract of service, means the position in N.R.M.A. & F.C. v Johnson (2019) had been restored.
While the foregoing authority was just been reported in July 2024 by NWLR, the said decision is not yet on hard copy reports and other electronic reporting platforms such as Law Pavillion and it may be difficult for judges of the NICN to have become aware of the decision in guiding their judgments.
What is most worrisome is that beyond the fact that NWLR and Law Pavilion who are private entities, owe no particular obligation to the government of Nigeria in terms of reporting judgments, the Court system in Nigeria has no modality of disseminating decisions within the system, especially from higher courts to lower courts.
As far back as 2018 when I published the text titled “Modern Nigerian Legal System” (Lawlords Publication), I had recommended in chapter five of the text (page 301) that with the advent of technology and improvement in law reporting, the Supreme Court and most especially, Court of Appeal, with its series of conflicting decisions given by various divisions, should synchronize its decision on various principles through the use of software application. I added that the software can guide the lower court and save precious time and guarantee certainty. Also, any decision that is overruled should be eliminated from the software and dissenting position should be clearly indicated.
Assuming the system is to continue in the analog pattern or pending the introduction of the technology, I strongly recommend that where the Supreme Court delivers a judgment on a peculiar subject, for instance employment, the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court should promptly send certified copies of the judgment to the President of the National Industrial Court who should then intimate all the judges of the Court on the latest position of the Supreme court. That way, innocent citizens would be saved from being shut out of the court, arising from the kick of an authority that is already dead.
