• Warns against court orders

Fred Itua, Abuja 

Apparently embittered by last week’s order of a Federal High Court in Abuja, restraining the Senate from overriding President Muhammadu Buhari’s veto on Electoral Amendment Bill 2018, the

  Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has warned critics to stop misinterpreting amendment of the Electoral Act .

Saraki said such misinterpretations  “breed roadside appeal and supreme courts entities who see bills passed by the National Assembly as either self-serving or infractions on extant laws of the land without ab nitio, participating in the process of coming up with the bills.”

The senate president handed down the warning in his remarks at a one-day public hearing organised by the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, yesterday.

Saraki said “it was unfortunate that such critics are never present  at such legislative fora for the needed cross fertilisation of ideas.”

He was represented at the public hearing on three bills by Senate Deputy Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah, where he  that the Red Chamber has no particular positions on the bills  (Legal Practitioners Act (Amendment) Bill 2018, Data Protection Bill and Facial Mutilation Prohibition Bill).

“The reason why relevant stakeholders in their areas of focus were invited but unfortunately ardent critics of laws made by us are not here to make their inputs.

“These critics are no doubt, roadside appeal and supreme courts misinterpreting our laws and by extension, turning the decision of the National Assembly upside down as being experienced with one of the bills recently passed and being litigated against.

“Our appeal to these critics is to stop misinterpreting our laws and make themselves available at the public hearing stages of passing such laws,” he said.

Although invited, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami was absent at the hearing. He was represented by Yusuf Abdullahi.

Asked why the AGF was a by the

Committee Chairman, David Umoru,  asked Abdullahi why the AGF  was absent, he replied that he was in court, in respect of a litigation against the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2018, which contains new sequence of elections for 2019.

He said the office has a contrary view on the intendment of the Legal Practitioners Act (Amendment) Bill .

But, President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), said the proposed amendments to the act were necessary, in view of being an archaic document enacted in 1962.

“The move by the Senate to amend the Legal Practitioners Act, through an amendment bill, is a welcome development because, to us, that would help in bringing the needed reforms  for the review of regulation of legal profession,” he said.

Stakeholders had diverse opinion on the Data Protection bill while the Facial Mutilation bill sponsored by Dino Melaye, was overwhelmingly kicked against.