The Nigerian Judiciary in recent years has struggled to gain public confidence, especially after the 2019 and 2023 general elections.
The issue of ‘forum shopping’ is leading to huge confusion and bringing the judiciary to disrepute. According to Black Law Dictionary, forum Shopping is a practice where “a party attempts to have its action tried in a particular court or jurisdiction where it feels it will receive the most favorable judgement or verdict.”
Recently, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, while speaking at the event making the beginning of the 2024/2025 Legal year of the Supreme Court, frowned at lawyers and litigants who practice forum shopping and promised that guilty persons will be punished.
She said, “The attitude of some of us in the justice sector is sometimes less than salutary, and that has, to a large extent, contributed to the current image deficit of the country’s legal system.
“Forum shopping by some of our legal practitioners is rampant. It is such acts that often give rise to the emergence of conflicting orders by courts of coordinate jurisdiction.
“I would like to state clearly that henceforth, there will be consequences for any act of indiscretion that could bring the judiciary to disrepute. We have rules and ethics guiding the practice of our noble profession, and we must work assiduously to abide by them and always do what is right in the eye of the law,” the CJN added.
The Court of Appeal also affirmed this in its judgement on Ibori v. FRN, when it held thus: “There is no provision in the EFCC Act, to the effect that it can pick and choose at will or randomly, which court to arraign and prosecute an accused person. Forum shopping is not a practice recognized or approved under our laws Indeed, it is frowned upon, regarded and rightly too, as an aberration and an undisguised willful attempt to punish an accused person before a verdict of guilt is returned in his criminal trial. By no means and with whatever leverage should prosecution be converted to persecution, victimization, discrimination, deprivation, open denial of fair hearing and an assault on well-defined principles of natural justice and the 1999 Constitution, You cannot take an accused person from Lagos to Gashua for trial just like that without the law as your forte.”
The above judgement was referring to when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) filed charges against the former governor of Delta State, James Ibori, at the Federal High Court, Kaduna division and a subsequent appeal at the Court of Appeal, Kaduna.
The appellate Court in its judgment on Dec. 19, 2008, declined to dismiss the suit but rather ordered that it be transferred to the Federal High Court, Asaba with requisite jurisdiction. There were other cases where this practice was condemned and the Court has continued to frown at such behaviour.
In an interview with THE WHISTLER, human rights lawyer, Festus Onifade, said Forum Shopping has greatly affected the judiciary, as it raises a jurisdictional issue.
He said forum shopping “is the very act of going to where you can get favourable judgement, people do it. You see them carry a matter that happens in Lagos to Abuja or other areas, because they feel they will advantage by doing so.
Citing the Ibori vs FRN case, he said “The law is that you file the suit in the court of competent jurisdiction closest to you.
“If it’s a State High Court, you go to a State High Court that is closest to you, if it’s a Federal High Court, you go to the Federal High Court closest to you.
“If you file one that is not within the court’s jurisdiction, it will raise a jurisdictional issue.”
Onifade, however, said there is no precise law prescribing punishment for those who indulge in such practices.
“There is no punishment, the only thing is that the court will strike the matter out, the court might say its an abuse of court process and the other party can ask for cost.
“Aside from that, there is no other precise law,” he added.
Also, a legal practitioner, Uchenna Ibe, speaking with THE WHISTLER said forum shopping occurs because the law is yet to settle issues of jurisdiction in the judiciary, ton force litigants to file their cases within a particular location.
“Sometimes what should have been done at Abia State High Court, you see them bring it to the Federal High Court, Abuja. This is because we have not settled the issue of jurisdiction between the Federal and State High Courts.
“People have their reasons for doing so; it could be because some litigants might know the disposition of a judge to a matter.
“Sometimes, it is done to punish someone, imagine bringing something that happened in Abia State to Abuja, making the other party spend heavily to honour the case, then later calling the person to settle things out of court.
“There is nothing the court can do about it, all of them are legal. High Court is high court, nobody says you must go to a Federal High Court or state
“The Court of Appeal Enugu and Owerri are in charge of matters in the South East, but someone can still carry a matter to Abuja and the court will assume jurisdiction.
On the issue of conflicting Judgements, Ibe said, “When a court of competent jurisdiction has given judgement, you will not now go to another court, if you do it, we call it an abuse of court process, instead, you appeal, because the High Courts are of coordinate, all over the country.
“If there are two conflicting judgements of coordinate jurisdiction, the law is that the latest will apply, not the former. However, it gives the parties option to choose which to obey. If a state High Court gives an order and a Federal High Court gives another order, you now leave the party to choose, which should not be.
“Like the Kano case, when the court dissolved the Emirates and merged them into one, another court nullified it. The NJC and NBA had to get involved to question the action of those lawyers who instituted the matter.
“When lawyers do that, we ask the court to strike out the other one for abuse of court process, or discipline the lawyer for abuse of court process.
“When those matters go on appeal, the court of appeal will either rebuke the lawyers involved or the judge involved.
“If as a high court judge of a state, I am aware that the Federal High Court has given judgement on a particular matter before me, by our rule I’m supposed to reject the matter and advise parties to go and obey the judgement but these things happen, people do it for various reasons.
“These issues occur because of the fluidity of our court provisions, It mostly happens in election matters and political cases, but we will keep fine-tuning our electoral jurisprudence until we get the best,” he said.