{"id":5158,"date":"2015-07-01T14:38:42","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T13:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writehouse.org\/?p=1875"},"modified":"2015-07-01T14:38:42","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T13:38:42","slug":"judging-the-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/judging-the-judges\/","title":{"rendered":"Judging the Judges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018The Write Partner\u2019 assesses, criticizes, or praises the language of selected passages from Nigerian judicial writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nigeria v Wabara [2013] 5 NWLR (Part 1347) 331, 340.<\/p>\n

The opening paragraph in the Supreme Court\u2019s leading judgment reads: This is an appeal against the judgment of the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal, hereinafter referred to as the court below, in appeal No. CA\/A\/7\/C\/2006 delivered on the 1st day of June, 2010 allowing the appeal of the respondents herein against the decision of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, hereinafter referred to as the trial court, in suit No. FCT\/HC\/CR\/31\/2005. Being dissatisfied with the judgment, the respondent at the court below, now appellant herein, has appealed to this court on a notice of appeal containing eight grounds. I shall summarise at once the facts of the case that brought about the appeal.<\/em><\/p>\n

This passage has several problems, including:-<\/p>\n

1.\tThe data it contains do not belong in the judgment, but in the case file and the law reporter\u2019s history of the case. Indeed, page 339 of the report details some of these data.<\/p>\n

2.\tThe phrase hereinafter referred to as the court below<\/em> is unnecessary. The Court of Appeal is obviously the court below the Supreme Court. Whenever the Supreme Court says the court below<\/em>, it means the court from which the appeal arose, typically the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n

3.\tThe phrase hereinafter referred to as the trial court<\/em> is unnecessary. The FCT High Court is the only trial court in the narrative.<\/p>\n

4.\tThe judgment need not name the division of the Court of Appeal from which the appeal came. That information will show in the case history.<\/p>\n

5.\tThe algebraic appeal number at the Court of Appeal and the suit number at the High Court are unnecessary in the judgment and interfere with readability.<\/p>\n

6.\tThe judgment does not need to include the date of the Court of Appeal judgment, unless there is a time-sensitive issue in the case.<\/p>\n

7.\tThe phrase Being dissatisfied with the judgment<\/em> is redundant. All appellants are dissatisfied. Nobody appeals out of joy. <\/p>\n

8.\tThe phrase has appealed to this court on a notice of appeal containing eight grounds<\/em> is irksome and periphrastic. A notice of appeal is the only mode of filing an appeal. Preferable: the appeal is premised on 8 grounds.<\/p>\n

9.\tWords like herein<\/em> and hereinafter<\/em> should no longer be used in legal writing.<\/p>\n

10.\tThe entire paragraph is unnecessary. The judgment should start with the issues, as follows: In this appeal, the Supreme Court has to address the following questions \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018The Write Partner\u2019 assesses, criticizes, or praises the language of selected passages from Nigerian judicial writing. Nigeria v Wabara [2013] 5 NWLR (Part 1347) 331, 340. The opening paragraph in the Supreme Court\u2019s leading judgment reads: This is an appeal against the judgment of the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal, hereinafter referred to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-write-partner-july-2015-edition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}