A professor of Law, Yemi Akinseye-George, said on Friday that any judge who embarrasses the judiciary should be sacked.
Mr Akinseye-George stated this in an interview with journalists during the closing ceremony of the sixth Annual Criminal Law Review Conference organised by the Rule of Law Development Foundation in Abuja.
He commended the National Judicial Council, chaired by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, on the recent outcome of investigations on some judges in the country.
The senior lawyer said, “The reason the judiciary is being criticised is because the judges are also humans. You cannot have a perfect judiciary in an imperfect environment. But that is not an excuse for not attempting to be perfect. The judiciary is the last hope of a common man and members of the public expect, and rightly too, that the judiciary will be above board.
“There was a panel that sat recently of the NJC that came up with specific decisions. Some judges were sacked, some were cautioned, and some were commended. That should happen regularly.
“The fact that judges are given up to 70 years of retirement does not mean that you should keep everybody there up to 70 years. Some should be told to go, if they embarrass the judiciary or embarrass the country.”
He added, “How can a judge, who heads a judiciary and falsifies his age, retire to go home without any punishment? NJC has done the right thing by saying, ‘In addition to your retirement, you must refund the funds that you earned illegally through the wrong declaration of age’.”
(NAN)
