CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF COURT MARTIAL CASES AT APPELLATE COURTS IN NIGERIA 1990- 2014
ABSTRACT
Court martial is a major aspect of administration of
military justice. In Nigeria, courts martial set up by the Army, Navy and Air
Force have had numerous problems in the last 24 years leading to upturning of
majority of the judgments by appellate courts. Judgments of about 70 percent of
court martial cases that were appealed against in Nigeria between 1990 and 2014
were upturned by appellate courts. This work discovered that the major reasons
that made appellate courts to upturn the judgments were on grounds of lack of
jurisdiction, non-observance of the principles of fair hearing and lack of
diligent prosecution among others. The Nigerian Armed Forces have lost several
officers and soldiers to dismissals from courts martial of which their
dismissals and sentence of imprisonment were upturned many years after, when it
was difficult to get them back to service. This equally led to wastage of
several man-hours prosecuting such cases at high expense. These were equally
accompanied by harsh comments from justices of appellate courts which in some
instances ridiculed the military justice system in Nigeria. The research is
therefore aimed at proving that between 1990 and 2014, most of the court
martial judgments were upturned on appeal based on lack of jurisdiction, non
observance of the principles of fair hearing and lack of diligent prosecution.
The major objective is to ensure that courts martial follow the prescribed
procedures during trials. The research found out that one of the major reasons
that makes court martial presidents and members conduct the procedures of the
court in ways contrary to what it should be is command influence. Command
influence is the negative influence of some convening authorities which makes
the members to do his bidding at the courts martial. As a way out of the
problem, the research recommended the insulation of courts martial from command
influence and ensuring that those whose avoidable actions caused the upturning
of court martial judgments on appeal get to feel the consequence of their
actions. The principal ways of insulating courts martial from command influence
as identified by the research include the Nigerian Armed Forces keying into the
housing scheme of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria to get a personal house
for every officer at the rank of Major. The officers are to bear the cost of
the houses but to pay gradually from commission. In this way, officers will
have a house to retire to, early in their career, thereby reducing the
retirement phobia that facilitates command influence. The work equally
recommended a situation where court martial members do not get evaluation
reports from convening officers of courts martial where they are members. In
the final analysis, the researcher believes that if these measures are adopted,
the upturning of judgments of courts martial by appellate courts in Nigeria
will be reduced to the barest minimum.