BEVERLY HILLS, May 07, (THEWILL) – President Goodluck Jonathan may have won the suit he filed against the National Assembly over the latter’s threat to override his veto and enact into law the Fourth Alteration Act which seeks to amend the 1999 constitution.
This is as the Supreme Court tactically aborted the National Assembly’s plan by stopping the lawmakers from going ahead with the amendment.
Ruling on the suit, Thursday, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, who presided at the hearing of the suit, handed a warning to the parties involved not to do anything that will affect the subject matter of the suit as he adjourned further hearing in the suit to June 18.
The ruling has however put paid to any plan by the current National Assembly to do anything on the amendment as its tenure would have ended by the time further hearing on the case comes up on June 18.
To achieve the objective of aborting the threat of the National Assembly, the Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, had applied for an order of interculotry injunction restraining the National Assembly from taking any further step towards passing the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Fourth Alteration) Act, 2015 into law pending the final determination of the suit earlier filed before the court.
The application which was filed by the counsel to the AGF, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN was brought pursuant to Order 3 Rule 14 of the Supreme Court Rules as amended.
The AGF premised the application on the grounds among others that the National Assembly was determined to proceed with passing the constitution by overriding the veto of same despite the fundamental nature of the issues raised against it.
Before handing down his ruling on Thursday, the CJN had sought clarification on whether the suit was properly instituted, saying the president should have filed the suit personally and not through the AGF.
The CJN averred that since the dispute is not between the Federal Government and the federating units, the proper person to file should be President Jonathan, though Ojo insisted that the suit was properly filed.
The other justices of the court also asked to know whether it was right not to make states’ Houses of Assembly parties since they participated in the process that resulted in the amendments.
The apex court therefore adjourned the suit to June 18 for the counsel to the Federal Government to address the court on whether the case was properly constituted.
However before the adjournment, the CJN had warned that the “Parties should not do anything that will affect the subject matter of the suit.”
President Jonathan on behalf of the Federal Government had dragged the National Assembly to the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to declare the amendments to the constitution proposed by the lawmakers as unconstitutional.
Claiming that the purported Fourth Alteration Act 2015 was not passed with the mandatory requirement of four-fifths majority of members of the Defendant and the mandatory due processes provided for under the relevant sections of the extant Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended, the Federal Government had asked the Supreme court to make an order nullifying and setting aside Sections 3, 4, 12, 14, 21, 23, 36, 39, 40, 43 and 44 of the Fourth Alteration Act, 2015 purportedly passed by the Defendant.
