Tribunal dismisses PDP, LP’s request for live coverage, says petition lacked merit

Tribunal dismisses PDP, LP’s request for live coverage, says petition lacked merit

From Ibraheem Hamza Muhammad

A five-man tribunal of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) headed by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, has dismissed the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) requesting for live coverage of court proceedings, saying it lacked merit.

According to the tribunal, it cannot grant such request from the petitioners as there are no regulatory framework guiding it.

“The court can only be guided and act in accordance with the practice directions and procedures approved by the President of the Court of Appeal.

“We cannot permit a situation that may lead to dramatization of our proceedings,” Justice Tsammani held.

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It added that request for live broadcast will do no good for the petitions before it and that it was a sentimental attachment believed to benefit the electorates.

The tribunal, however, maintained that the petitioners (Atiku, Obi and their respective parties) failed to prove how live broadcast of the proceedings would aid in determining the matters at hand.

It could be recalled that the presidential candidate of the PDP at the recently concluded February 25 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had filed an application on May 8 for an order to allow the live coverage of the daily court proceedings in the case his party has brought against the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

While the LP and its presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Obi, followed suit with a similar application asking that proceedings of the tribunal be televised live.

Similarly, a week later, at resumed hearing, Bola Tinubu through his legal team in a counter-affidavit opposed the application for a live broadcast of the proceedings of the election petition court, describing it as an abuse of court processes.

Tinubu’s legal team said both Atiku and Obi are attempting to expose the judiciary to public opprobrium.

According to them, the court “is not a rostrum or a soapbox. It is not also a stadium or theatre. It is not an arena for public entertainment.”

“Another angle to this very curious application is the invitation it extends to the court to make an order that it cannot supervise.

“The position of the law remains, and we do submit that the court, like nature, does not make an order in vain, or an order which is incapable of enforcement,” the respondents added.

Besides, they argued that the application was at best, “academic, very otiose, very unnecessary, very time-wasting, most unusual and most unexpected, particularly, from a set of petitioners, who should be praying for the expeditious trial of their petition.”

“Petitioners have brought their application under Section 36(3) of the Constitution which provides that the proceedings of a court/tribunal shall be held in public.

“The word ‘public’ as applied under Section 36(3) of the Constitution has been defined in a plethora of judicial authorities to mean a place where members of the public have unhindered access, and the court itself, sitting behind open doors, not in the camera.

“Even in situations where a class action is presented, the particular people constituting the class being represented by the plaintiffs or petitioners are always defined in the originating process.

“Here, in this application, the public at whose behest this application has been presented is not defined, not known, not discernable.

“Beyond all these, it is our submission that the court of law must and should always remain what it is, what it should be and what it is expected to be: a serene, disciplined, hallowed, tranquil, honourable and decorous institution and place.

“It is not a rostrum or a soapbox. It is not also a stadium or theatre. It is not an arena for ‘public’ entertainment.

“With much respect to the petitioners, the motion is an abuse of the processes of this honourable court,” Tinubu argued.

Meanwhile, counsels representing the petitioners led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, and Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, argued that the petitions they presented to the court questioning the veracity of the declaration of the candidate of the APC, Tinubu, as winner of the election, was “a matter of monumental national concern and public interest” hence it is pertinent for the electorates to have first hand information on deliberations in the court.

“An order, directing the Court’s Registry and the parties on modalities for admission of Media Practitioners and their Equipments into the courtroom.

“With the huge and tremendous technological advances and developments in Nigeria and beyond, including the current trend by this Honourable Court towards embracing electronic procedures, virtual hearing and electronic filing, a departure from the rules to allow a regulated televising of the proceedings in this matter is in consonance with the maxim that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done.

“Televising court proceedings is not alien to this Honourable Court, and will enhance public confidence,” they argued.