Senate charges nominee for President of Court of Appeal on justice

Nominee for the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban Mensem, has been tasked to persistently stand for justice in the Judiciary by the Senate.

The charge came through the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal matters which maintained that it was critical for the nominee to maintain such stand in the administration of justice for all Nigerians irrespective of tribe or Creed.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Human Right, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, said the Senate would revisit the budget of the Judiciary which is less than one per cent of the  2020 budget with a view to enable it meet the needs of the Judiciary.

He added that the insignificant votes given the Judiciary requires urgent and upward reviews especially as the “budget of the Judiciary which is less than 1% of the N10.509trillion 2020  budget size for the country”.

He lamented further by stating that the welfare situation of the judicial officers was nothing to write home about.

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According to him, the last time salaries and emoluments of judicial officers were reviewed was in 2008, the benefits of which have been completely eroded by inflationary trends.

“This sector might go into extinction if the needful is not urgently done, because, in years to come, Nigerians may no longer be interested in going into the sector,” he warned.

Earlier before the Chairman’s closing remarks, virtually all the senators who attended the screening session from the Deputy President of the Senate to other members of the committee described the nominee as square peg, nominated for fixing into a square hole.

The nominee in her introductory remarks said she had spent 40 years in the Judiciary from 1980 when she was called to bar and served in the Ministry of Justice and subsequently appointed as Registrar of the Court and made Magistrate few years after which culminated in her appointment as Judge of High Court in Plateau State in 1996.

She added that she became judge of FCT High Court thereafter till 2003 when she was transferred her service to FCT Judiciary as Judge of FCT High Court till 2003 when invited to serve as a Justice of the Court of Appeal.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE