Olushola Omogbehin
The Supreme Court has vacated the order that directed the the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to maintain status quo ante bellum pending the determination of its leadership crisis.
In a judgment delivered on Thursday by Justice Mohammed Garba, the apex court posits that although courts possess powers to make preservative orders to protect the subject matter of litigation, such orders cannot survive once proceedings have been concluded.
The court therefore permitted the appeal and nullified the order sustaining the status quo ante bellum in the dispute involving rival factions of the ADC leadership.
The judgment arose from the legal battle over the party’s leadership structure, including the legitimacy of appointments and congresses conducted by opposing factions within the party.
In the judgment, Justice Garba explained that the trial court’s directive maintaining the status quo ante bellum was essentially a preservative order intended to prevent parties from taking steps capable of foisting a fait accompli on the court while proceedings were ongoing.
But according to Garba, once proceedings have been “fully, faithfully, conclusively and finally concluded,” there would be “nothing left for that court to preserve.”
Justice Garba held that Section 241(1)(f)(ii) of the 1999 Constitution, which provides for appeals as of right in certain interlocutory decisions relating to injunctions, did not apply in the circumstances of the case.
He held that the trial judge neither granted nor refused an application for injunction but merely issued procedural directives aimed at preserving the subject matter of the dispute pending hearing.
The court further held that because the grounds of appeal were not purely on points of law, leave of court was required before the appeal could validly be filed.
He added that the competence of a notice of appeal goes to the jurisdiction of the court and once defective, the entire appeal becomes incompetent.
In spite of this, the apex court examine the propriety of the preservative orders made by the lower courts and eventually held that sustaining the status quo ante bellum after the relevant proceedings had ended was unnecessary and legally unsustainable.
