Importance of Supreme Court underscored by Advocate

Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) says the Supreme Court is cardinal to the evolution of as stronger judiciary.
Akinseye-George, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), noted that although judges were entitled to their independent opinions in delivering judgements, the Supreme Court unified the system.
According to him, the independence of opinion is the prerogative of every judge and any judge who lacks such independence is not fit for the bench.
He said a judge was independent in his judgment even when his views might not be in sequence with the views of his fellow judges.
He observed that conflicting judgments were inevitable because every judge was independent and not bound to accept the perspective of his fellow judge.
``The Court of Appeal has always faced the criticism of delivering conflicting judgments particularly in election matters and such conflicting judgments cannot but happen for so many reasons,’’ he said.
According to him, one of the reasons for conflicting judgments can be as a result of the multiplicity of the divisions in the Court of Appeal.
``The Court of Appeal has about 16 divisions and each division has a minimum of three to five justices.
``We do not yet have a mechanism of simultaneous publication of judgments of one division in another division.
``There is a time lag between when the judgments are delivered and when they are circulated among all the divisions,’’ he observed.
He said irrespective of the challenges, the Supreme Court had the power to unify the judiciary system.