A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Kenneth Okonkwo, says the job of the law court is to interpret the law and bring order to society.
Speaking in an interview on ‘Sunrise Daily’, a programme on Channels Television monitored by DAILY POST on Tuesday, Okonkwo said such interpretation of the law should not bring chaos and anarchy to society.
He was reacting to the Supreme Court judgment which reaffirmed that the President holds the constitutional power to declare a state of emergency in any state where circumstances threaten public safety or governance.
“The job of the court is to interpret the law, not to make it, not to amend it, and their interpretation should be such that it brings order in society, and not chaos and anarchy.
“You have just pointed out that the position of the court is different from what the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF has said. From what other people, even the friends of Tinubu that condemned the emergency, the position of the court is even different from theirs.
“There was a demonstration of lack of understanding of federalism, of rule of law and of common sense, because we are operating a democracy-power to the people.
“So how can a court rule? And they are putting a constitution that I don’t know the paragraph and section they cited that the power should now be in the president to determine who the leaders of people are.
“Let me tell you what the rule of law says. According to Professor AV Dicey, he was the person that made the first authoritative statement of rule of law, and he said rule of law is the absolute predominance of the regular law as opposed to arbitrary power and excludes the present or the existence of arbitrariness or prerogative or wide discretionary powers on the path of government,” the politician and lawyer said.
