The Director of the Legal Department, Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, Mr Nelson Orji, has described the Court’s judgement on Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) as dead on arrival.
In his ruling, Justice James Omotosho voided the N500,000 fines imposed by NBC on 45 broadcast stations on March 1, 2019.
According to Justice Omotosho, NBC, not being a court of law, lacked the power to impose sanctions as punishment on alleged erring broadcast stations.
He held that the NBC Code, on which the commission relies to impose sanctions, is in conflict with Section 6 of the Constitution which vested judicial power in the court of law.
The judge said the court would not sit idle and watch a body imposing fine arbitrarily without recourse to the law.
The judgment was on a suit marked:FHC/ABJ/CS/1386/2021 filed by a group, the Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda.
However, in their reaction, Orji said the judgement is “ill-conceived and dead on arrival because of legal encumbrances.”
According to him, a Federal High Court also sitting in Abuja had earlier given a contrary decision that NBC had the power to impose sanctions on erring stations.
Orji disclosed that Justice N. E. Maha in April 2022 had ruled in a case brought against NBC by seven organisations led by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project.
In a Certified True Copy of the judgement sighted by NAN, Justice Maha had interpreted the provision of Section 2(1)(n) of the NBC Act, 1992.
The provision states, “The Commission shall have the responsibility of determining and applying sanctions including revocation of licences of defaulting stations which do not operate in accordance with the broadcast code and public interest.”
Relying on the provision, Justice Maha held, “The law is settled that a regulator imposing fines under its enabling law in the discharge of its functions could not have acted unconstitutionally.
“In Moses Ediru v Federal Road Safety Commission and 20 others (supra), the court held that the FRSC Act gives the Commission the right to impose and enforce sanctions and such right does not derogate from the judicial powers of the court as provided in the constitution.
“In essence, there is no confluence point where the powers of FRSC and that of the court meet.
“In that Moses Ediru case, the court further observed that FRSC and the court are mutually exclusive such that the FRSC powers of enforcement of sanctions is not an usurpation of the judicial powers of the court.”
While evaluating both cases, Orji noted that there existed conflicting decisions of the same court of coordinate jurisdiction on the same issue of whether NBC can impose sanctions
He said by the convention of the law, “where there is the conflicting decision of courts of coordinate jurisdiction a party can choose which of them to obey and it will not be held in contempt of any court.
“It is worthy of note that the judgement of Justice Maha is first in time and still subsisting as it has not been set aside by any appellate court.
“In this light, NBC is still well within its right to continue to impose sanctions on broadcast organisations which run fowl of the NBC code.”
Orji further said the case against the 45 erring stations was strict liability offences and they had all complied by paying their fines.
He contended that if the judgement was allowed to stand it would mean that government agencies such as the NBC, FRSC, and Quarantine Services, would be rendered redundant.
