LEGISLATIVE POWERS ON BUDGET; FED HIGH COURT ABUJA RULES
The Federal High Court
in Abuja has ruled that the Legislature (National Assembly) is within its
rights to either increase or reduce budget estimates sent to it by the Executive.
The ruling of the Federal
High Court is coming at the heels of the controversy that trailed the 2017 budget recently
signed into law recently
by Professor Yemi Osinbajo, in his capacity as the Acting President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria,
Femi Falana had filed a suit before the court asking it to determine four
questions, namely:
1. By Section 81 of
the Constitution, the National Assembly can increase or review upward any
aspect of the estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the Federation for
the next financial year prepared and laid before it by the Executive;
2. By Section 85 of
the Constitution, the National Assembly can audit public accounts of the
Federation, appoint auditors for statutory bodies or conduct periodic checks of
all government statutory corporations, commissions, authorities, agencies,
including all persons and bodies established by an Act of the National Assembly
in any manner whatsoever and howsoever;
3. By virtue of
sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution, the National Assembly can summon
corporate bodies and private individuals while conducting an investigation into
any matter, and;
4. By virtue of
section 214 of the Constitution, NASS can probe or investigate the allegations of
corrupt practices, fraud, murder and other criminal offences committed in
statutory corporations, commissions, authorities, agencies, including all
persons and bodies established by an Act of the National Assembly in any matter
howsoever.
Chief Femi Falana had
listed the President, the Attorney-General of the Federation, the National
Assembly and the Auditor-General of the Federation as respondents in the suit.
However, in his
ruling, Judge Gabriel O. Kolawole, stated that the questions as posed by
Falana’s counsel, bordered on interpretations of the specific provisions of the
Constitution which relate to the exercise of the National Assembly’s
constitutional legislative powers, and that the essence of the suit is that the
National Assembly, under the guise of exercising oversight functions, usurps
executive powers; an assertion which the judgment subsequently nullified.
Kolawole stressed
that the Nigerian Constitution, which is modeled largely after that of the
United States, has “as its underpinning principle, the constitutional doctrine
of separation of powers”, and that sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Constitution
clearly state that the machinery of the government of the federation at both
federal and state levels, is predicated on three equal and coordinate arms of
government, i.e. Legislature, Judiciary and Executive.
The Judge also
observed that the drafting of the Constitution makes cooperation between all
the arms compulsory, as, by design, none can operate by standing aloof of the
others, and this gives rise to the need for checks and balances, which would help
prevent dictatorship, as certain powers by an arm of government are subjected
to review or ratification by another.
In his verdict, the Presiding
Judge further noted that the whole purpose of sections 81, 85, 88 and 89 is to
ensure that Executive and agencies under its control are subjected to some form
of oversight by Parliament, and that since the National Assembly is
constitutionally empowered to appropriate funds to be expended for the running
of government, it therefore has powers of oversight to ensure those
appropriated funds are properly administered.
“The legislature and
the executive are subject to the interpretative jurisdiction of the Court as to
the constitutionality or otherwise of the exercise of their respective powers”, he said, stressing the fact that it is the Judiciary which has
the constitutional responsibility of preventing both arms of government from
committing infractions of provisions of the Constitution.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole
while addressing questions put to the court by Falana, stated that “the National
Assembly was not created by drafters of the Constitution and imbued with the
powers to receive ‘budget estimates’ which the first defendant is
constitutionally empowered to prepare and lay before it, as a rubber stamp
parliament. The whole essence of the budget estimates being required to be laid
before Parliament is to enable it, being the Assembly of the representatives of
the people, to debate the said budget proposals and to make its own well informed
legislative inputs into it”.
With regard to the
question concerning the powers of the National Assembly to audit public
accounts or appoint auditors, the Judge stated that while the Constitution does
not explicitly grant this power, “in so far as that duty is vested in the Auditor-General of the
Federation, Parliament still retains legislative oversight powers over the AGF
even in respect of these matters.”
On whether
legislators can summon private citizens, the Court also ruled that “when
Parliament exercises powers to summon private corporate bodies in contrast to
public bodies, or where it summons a private citizen, the inquiry it is going
to conduct must be such that it is within legislative competence”,
i.e. relating to matters contained in the Exclusive Legislative List, on which
Parliament can legislate and/or amend existing laws.
On investigative
powers, the court ruled that Parliament can, via resolutions, “direct
agencies of government to conduct investigations, and where this is done in the
legitimate and bona fide exercise of its constitutional legislative powers, to
turn its reports to such agencies to aid them in their own investigations with
a view, not to merely expose corruption, but to prosecute those found culpable”.
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