Appeal Court Orders Stay In Onnoghen’s Trial

Reprieve has come for the embattled Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen as the Court of Appeal in Abuja has ordered the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT ) to “stay all proceedings” in relation to his trial.

A three-man panel of the appellate court, led by Justice Abdul Aboki, gave the interim restraining order yesterday after hearing arguments on a motion by Onnoghen, seeking to stay further proceedings of his trial at the CCT pending the determination of his appeal.

The court said that its order shall subsist till Wednesday, January 30 when it will give ruling on the CJN’s motion. Justice Aboki said: “This ruling (on the CJN’s motion that was argued) is adjourned till Wednesday, January 30. The tribunal is ordered to stay all proceedings.” While arguing the motion, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), who led the CJN’s legal team, prayed the court to grant the applicant’s request for a stay in the proceedings before the CCT pending the determination of the appeal.

In the appeal, Onnoghen challenged the competence of the order made by the CCT on January 14 this year, where it elected to hear pending applications, including the application by the CJN, challenging the tribunal’s jurisdiction and the one by the prosecution, seeking to compel Onnoghen to step aside pending the conclusion of hearing in the suit. Olanipekun told the Court of Appeal that the issue involved was jurisdictional, constitutional, and that it also involved the judiciary.

He said that there was the urgent need for the appellate court to preserve the res (the subject of the dispute), adding that the situation deserved the intervention of the court. According to him, “the subject is strong, unique and needs to be preserved” and took the court through the history of the case and all that had transpired at the CCT. Olanipekun told the court that the tribunal had refused to obey restraining orders issued against it by four separate high courts.

He further told the court that the tribunal asserted that it was not bound by the fact that the CJN’s appeal was pending before the Court of Appeal and that the appellate court had even fixed a date for hearing. In his response, counsel to the federal government, Oyin Koleoso, urged the Court of Appeal to dismiss the application for lack of merit. He said that if the appeal succeeds, it will not terminate the case before the tribunal.

Koleoso said: “The grievances that initiated the appeal are no longer there. If their request is granted, how then would their application be taken.” The CCT had adjourned till January 28 for the hearing of Onnoghen’s motion on jurisdiction, after it rejected the orders of four courts stopping the trial.

In a split judgment of two to one, the tribunal held that the orders of the courts stopping the trial at the tribunal were null and void, since the CCT is a unique creation of the constitution and cannot be subjected to the orders of the high court and industrial court being courts of equal jurisdiction.