2019: How knowledge gap may cost lawyers, politicians at election tribunals

Lawyers and their clients in election matters may suffer setbacks due to lack of knowledge on revolutions in the election’s legal framework.

While several speakers at the recently held Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room roundtable with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Election Working Group agreed that resolution of election and issues in election petition can be characterised as key to electoral process, they also share the opinion that when the masses believe they cannot get justice from election petition tribunals, it can result into seeking selfhelp.

Human rights lawyer, Festus Okoye, who led the discussion on issues and challenges observed in the review of electoral litigations and decisions, said that prosecution of election petitions require special knowledge. He said not all lawyers can successfully prosecute election petitions because the languages are different and elementary mistakes that are overlooked in conventional courts are severely punished during election petitions’ hearings.

He said some of the major issues from the 2015 elections petitions process that constituted “Dead on Arrival petition” were as trivial as some lawyers forgetting to sign the petitions with others not affixing their stamps to the petitions.

“Some of the lawyers framed issues outside the constitutionally and legally prescribed ones. Some petitioners did not file the prehearing information forms. Some lawyers did not know of the existence of Election Petition and Court Practice Directions while some thought that handling election petitions is akin to handling ordinary day to day cases,” he said.

Okoye, who has just been appointed as Commissioner for the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), added that it is not only lawyers that need training and retraining on election issues. He said judges that will be selected to sit on the tribunals must also go through specialised trainings.

The issue of the discretionary powers of the courts to extend time in matter of exceptional circumstances was also one of the issues from the 2015 elections petitions process, Okoye said.

He added that, “The Supreme Court has held and insisted that the time for the filing of election petitions is cast in stone and is immovable. They also insisted that the time for the filing and disposal of election petitions are mathematically calculated (which includes weekends and public holidays) and not subject to the Interpretation Act.”

The time for the filing and disposal of election petitions, according to him, are 130 days for Election Tribunals, 60 days for Court of Appeal and 60 days for the Supreme Court.

Going forward, Okoye said there is need for certainty in the electoral process regarding the exact legal and constitutional framework that will govern the conduct of the forthcoming elections, adding that lawyers and judges that will handle election petitions must see election petition as a specialised area and organise trainings to acquaint themselves with the workings of the tribunal and the new issues.

The convener of the Situation Room, Clement Nwankwo, who is also the Executive Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), said while efforts are being made to address this knowledge gaps, the National Assembly should conclude amendments to both the constitution and the Electoral Act on time, at least six months before the general elections to avoid confusions that may arise from stakeholders not being certain of which legal framework that would guide the elections.

He said smart card readers and other technological innovations should be embedded in the constitution and the Electoral Act as advised by the Supreme Court in the aftermath of the 2015 general elections.