On July 10, Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee (LPPC) announced the names of successful lawyers who will be inaugurated in September as Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs). As usual, not all the applicants were considered, especially some notable lawyers, and the development drew reactions. Senior Correspondent, ONYEWUCHI OJINNAKA, compiles the views of some lawyers.
Truly, many are called to the bar, but few have to be chosen as senior advocates. On Friday, July 10, the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee (LPPC) released the names of 21 successful lawyers (applicants) who were conferred with the title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) for 2015.
The Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court and Secretary to the LPPC, Ahmed Saleh, announced the names of the successful lawyers at a press conference in Abuja. According to him, out of 124 lawyers that applied, 50 were shortlisted and at the end of screening/interview, only 21 lawyers were selected for the title at the 119th general meeting of the LPPC, as a mark of excellence.
TheNiche gathered that only one out of the three female lawyers that applied was selected. It was further reported that the successful applicants will be sworn in on September 21 at a special court session to mark the commencement of 2015/2016 legal year.
Unfortunately, some of the notable legal practitioners were not selected and the development has raised issues on the mode of selection by LPPC.
Reactions
A legal luminary, Afe Babalola (SAN) has always maintained that all qualified applicants for the rank of senior advocate should be conferred with the title. He argued that if after screening the applicants and all were suitable for the title of SAN, there should be no reason for reducing the number, adding that as many as scaled the hurdle should get the title.
The erudite silk, who founded Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), is concerned about the way the LPPC conducts its affairs, especially in the appointment of senior advocates. He is worried that LPPC does not appoint lawyers that qualify for appointment to SAN-ship. He has, as a result, recommended that appointment of senior advocates should follow the practice in England where the title is awarded to all that are qualified for the rank yearly.
While speaking at the commencement of the 48th Conference of the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers (NALT) in ABUAD, penultimate week, Babalola affirmed that the title of SAN, an equivalent of Queens Counsel (QC), was imported from England where the idea of the silk came from. He said from its inception in England, any number that qualifies in a year, be it 25, 60 or 70, all of them would be appointed, leaving no room for backlog. He wondered why Nigeria could not take a cue from that established and commendable practice in England.
SANs’ views
Babalola observed that some of the lawyers who qualify in a particular year and end up not being appointed in that year and subsequent years have been asking for the abrogation of the SAN title.
According to him, the grievance of some lawyers calling for the abrogation of the SAN title is because “they apply year after year and those who are qualified could be as many as 70, but at the end of the day, because the law limits the number appointable to only 15, a backlog of those who are qualified are left behind.”
He regretted that the practice has unwittingly led to nepotism where those who appoint legal practitioners to SAN-ship tend to favour those they know ahead of those they do not know very well.
“The question then arises: if a person is qualified, when does he become unqualified again? Perhaps one may ask those who are charged with the duty of appointing 15 out of 70 what criteria they use to jettison those who are qualified. This practice of appointing 15 out of the several that are qualified has led to ‘selection’ which may not be free from extraneous considerations,” he said.
However, a known critic of the award, Tunji Gomez, disagreed with Babalola’s position. He said the call by Babalola for modification of the award of senior advocates will be very dangerous. Gomez’s position is that no reform can help, and therefore the title should be abolished.
His words: “With due respect to Chief Afe Babalola, he is out of touch with the suffering of junior lawyers. He is no longer active in the bar association as he was, so he is not able to appreciate the suffering of young lawyers.
“The lawyers are saying the award itself is oppressive; but in England, it is not oppressive. If you have a case that is eight years old and a SAN has a case that is six months old, the court will hear his six months old case before your own case.
“What that means is that ordinary litigants are put in disadvantage because they want their cases to be heard quickly. So, they may take their cases from a junior lawyer and give it to a senior advocate. So, what we want is its abolition and not reform. So, what Chief Babalola is advocating is not a reform, it is an extension to a privileged class to oppress the majority of the people.”
Olu Daramola (SAN) aligned his position with Babalola. “If 50 are qualified, give it to them,” he stressed.
Speaking on the criteria, he said that any lawyer aspiring to be a SAN must be in active practice for 15 years (formerly 10 years) and must have prosecuted cases at the High Court, Appeal Court and Supreme Court levels, whether win or lose. Other criteria are that the aspirant must have functional library and be competent in the profession.
Transparency
Daramola posited that the system of selection is now transparent, adding that applicants pass through four or five stages before the final interview. If any applicant notices that he/she is wrongly dropped, the person can appeal to the panel set up to look into complaints and protest, he said, affirming that there is no political intrigue in the process of selecting applicants for SANship. Applicants dropped can apply repeatedly until they get it, he pointed out.
SAN is a title that may be conferred on legal practitioners in Nigeria of not less than 15 years (before now it was 10 years) active practice and who have distinguished themselves in the legal profession. It is the equivalent of the rank of QC in the United Kingdom, from which Nigeria adopted the title after Independence in 1960. A SAN is said to have been admitted into the “Inner Bar”, as distinguished from the outer bar, consisting of junior lawyers.
The conferment is made in accordance with the Legal Practitioners Act 207 Section 5 (1) by the LPPC, headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), and consists of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), one Justice of the Supreme Court selected by the CJN and AGF for a term of two years and renewable on one occasion only, the President of the Court of Appeal, five of the chief judges of the states selected by the CJN and AGF for a term of two years, and renewable on one occasion only, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, and five legal practitioners who are SANs selected by the CJN and AGF for a term of two years, renewable on one occasion only.
SAN title was first conferred on two erudite lawyers, Chief Fredrick Rotimi Alade (FRA) Williams of blessed memory and Dr. Nabo Graham-Douglas in April 3, 1975.
The new SANs will join 408 lawyers both living and dead who had been conferred with the rank since its inception in 1975.
