The great Jurist, Lord Denning M.R, once stated in Seaford Court Estates Limited v. Asher that:
We do not sit here to pull the language of Parliament and Ministers to pieces and make nonsense of it. It is an easy thing to do, and it is a thing to which lawyers are prone. We sit here to find out the intentions of Parliament and of Ministers and carry it out, and we do this by filling in the gaps and making sense of the enactment than by opening it up to destructive analysis.
The Nigerian legal system is one modelled after the English common law regime, and as such it is founded on judicial precedents, also known as the principle of stare decisis. Judgments of the courts of all levels, give meaning to the laws that govern the lives and activities of the nation. In this regard, though, judges do not participate in making laws (as done by a two-thirds majority of the members of the legislature). They, while sitting in courts, hallowed chambers of the temple of justice, ‘make’ laws that influence jurisprudence and the course of history.
Brief Insights is a compendium of some decisions that have significantly contributed to our jurisprudence. They are drawn from decisions of various courts of record in Nigeria, including the Federal and State High Courts, the National Industrial Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court and cover a wide range of legal issues that may arise from different areas to provide the reader with an array of topics in law.
The decisions in this compendium reflect critical thinking, creative arguments, and bold challenges of so-called settled principles by colleagues in advocating their clients’ position with law and ethics. This is a compendium of some remarkable decisions of relevant courts, which have come to bear on a range of areas of the law, from finance and monetary policies to oil and gas, maritime, and telecommunication to presidential electoral disputes among others.
As we shall discover in the body of this book, the decisions of the Courts presented have laid down important principles of law, which in our view, will serve as cornerstones to future cases. To remain objective, we have generally restricted our publication to present the Courts’ decisions, reproducing the exact judgments as delivered, and only providing annotations to our readers to ease reading and understanding. We hope that this book serves the noble purpose of further enriching its readers and by extension, serving as a modest contribution to the development of legal practice, the law, and society.
It is hoped that this compilation will find good positions on the desks and shelves of jurists, lawyers, teachers, students and all who desire to see that law does not remain static but progresses and adapts to the ever-changing needs of society through adept advocacy and bold decisions. Strong advocacy of the law and principled decisions are necessary for the promotion of justice in any society.
Charles Nwabulu
Deputy Managing Partner/ Editor-in-Chief
Kenna Partners
Victoria Island, Lagos.
May 28, 2023
Brief Insights: A Selection of Milestone Cases (Vol 2) is a careful selection of cases celebrating the progressive matters brought by litigants before Nigerian Courts, the persuasive arguments of Counsel and the well-reasoned and (in some cases) landmark decisions that have enriched legal practice and jurisprudence in recent times. Since the publication of the first edition of the Brief Insights in 2018, we have conducted several cases bordering on varying areas of law, including arbitration, administrative and constitutional law, and commercial law.
Following the fantastic reception of the first volume, this second volume contains Eighteen carefully curated cases of national importance that colleagues have handled within the period. The cases presented in this volume cover energy, finance, telecommunications, national policy, labour and other areas of law, and the arguments put forward in them have, without doubt, assisted the courts in arriving at decisions that continue to shape the legal landscape for trade, commerce and other aspects of the Nigerian society.
Professor Fabian Ajogwu, OFR, SAN, FCArb
Chairman, Governance Board, Kenna Partners
