ECOWAS Court dismisses suit seeking N110m compensation for slain journalists

ECONOMIC Community of West African States ECOWAS Court of Justice has dismissed a petition by the Media Rights Agenda ( MRA) to compel the Nigerian government to pay N10 million reparation each to families of 11 deceased journalists.

The group had, in the suit filed in 2021, also sought to compel government to thoroughly investigate unresolved killing of media practitioners between 1998 and 2021, identify and prosecute their killers.

Delivering judgment yesterday, a three- member panel, presided over by Justice Gberibe Ouattara, with Justice Dupe Atoki ruling, held that the 11 journalists could not be equated as “public.”

The court maintained that although their murder was a gross violation, it was bereft of jurisdiction to entertain and award reparation.

Earlier, MRA’S counsel, Darlington Onyekwere, argued that states were not only prohibited from taking life outside the permissible circumstances allowed by law, but equally have an obligation to act to prevent the loss of life .

He predicated his client’s case on the African Charter, which the Supreme Court of Nigeria had held in Abacha & Ors v. Fawehinmi ( 2001) 1 CHR 20 to supersede domestic laws. The activists contended that government could not rely on domestic laws to escape liability for human rights violations complained of in the case.

Onyekwere argued: “The government has failed, refused, neglected and omitted to effectively investigate, prosecute and punish killers of the journalists, who were murdered while exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and of the press or under circumstances connected to the exercise of these rights.

“Unless the court intervenes, the government will neither adopt measures to protect journalists nor cause any real, transparent and impartial investigations into the killings of journalists in Nigeria, while the perpetrators of such dastardly acts will not be prosecuted and punished.”