I was disturbed by the tone of your editorial of Wednesday, 31 July 2013 entitled
“The State vs. Al-Mustapha and others” on the discharge and acquittal of Major
Hamza Al-Mustapha, together with Lateef Shofolahan by the Court of Appeal,
Lagos where it upturned the death sentence pronounced on them by a Lagos High
Court, over the murder of Kudirat Abiola. In one you said “secondly, the
judgment raises the question of whether Nigerian courts are actually courts of
justice as they are called, or mere courts of law. For a court of justice
according to the law, sentiments have no place at all. It is a popular view in
legal circles that sentiment or a semblance of it is never allowed to filter
into justice. And this is why the Court of Appeal came across in this case as
no more than a court of law determined to espouse the principles of law to arrive
at a destination. Its consideration of the law was to set the “captives free”
whether or not there was any justification for this.”
I
do not hold brief for Al-Mustapha, but those who know anything about how the
military works understand how it is when your superior gives out an order: good
or bad. It is particularly worse when you have an evil one as boss.
Difficult
as it is to accept, the courts are not so much about justice as about the interpretation
of the law. What is justice for one may be injustice to another. People over centuries
have fought and laid down their lives for habeas corpus, freedom of speech, and
civil rights. To give them up we will be to return to the Wild West. The courts
and the law are there to protect everyone whether high or lowly.
Perhaps
freeing Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan for lack of clear evidence was disturbing to
many and heartbreaking to the family of Kudirat Abiola. Call it an ass, call it
a double-edged sword, the law is the law, and in the end it serves to protect all
of us. To get justice you cannot trample on another’s human rights. And for this justice, perhaps it lies buried
somewhere under a dead man’s bones.
Dr Cosmas Odoemena
Culled from The Guardian
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