THE MISUSE OF THE RIGHT OF FAIR HEARING

THE MISUSE OF THE RIGHT OF FAIR HEARING

Saheed Afeez Ayinde

DEEMLAWFUL

In this case, the court had cautioned counsel that would always invoke the sacred Fundamental Human Rights overtly without regarding the sacredness.

Fundamental Human Rights are solid pillars that must be observed by the court in every case through the respective parties till the dawn of the case. Failure to observe these rights either knowingly or unknowingly would somersault the case once the court has been hinted.

Counsels are known through plethora of cases to always invoke these rights particularly the right to fair hearing whenever it seems judgement would be against them. Hence, the superman in this case had cautioned the concerned counsel to allow the court in doing appropriate justice as demanded.

Adebayo V. A.-G. ,Ogun State (2008) 7 NWLR 201 SC,

where per Tobi, JSC, hit the nail on the head, as follows:

I have seen that Parties’ who have bad cases’ embrace and make use of the constitutional provision of fair hearing to bamboozle the adverse Party and the Court, with a view to moving the Court away from the live issue in the litigation. They make the defence in most inappropriate cases because they have nothing to canvass in their favour in the case.

The fair hearing provision in the Constitution is the machinery or locomotive of justice, not a spare part to propel or invigorate the case of the user. It is not a causal principle of law available to a Party to be picked up at will in a case and force the Court to apply to his advantage.

It is a formidable and fundamental constitutional provision available to a Party, who is really denied fair hearing because he was not heard or that he was not properly heard in the case.

Let litigants, who have nothing useful to advocate in favour of their case, leave the fair hearing constitutional provision alone because it is not available to them just for the asking.