Bar Misconduct: Supreme Court judgment puts LPDC in the dock

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

The Supreme Court, on June 26, provided a landmark judgment that appears to have actually put in the dock choices of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC )on accusations of misbehavior by legal representatives.
In a five-to-two choice, a seven-member panel of the court stated area 12(7 )of the Legal Practitioners Act(as modified )(LPA )unconstitutional, with the outcome that the court will no longer hear appeals from the LPDC.
The LPDC is the statutory body that disciplines legal professionals in Nigeria.
It hears petitions and workouts quasi-judicial powers that permit it to enforce sanctions as severe as striking an attorney’s name off the Roll or suspending an attorney from practice for a set duration.
The Body of Benchers designates the members of the LPDC on the election of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and the Attorney-General of the Federation is its statutory chairman.
Before the June 26 judgment, appeals versus judgments and regulations of the LPDC were lodged straight with the Supreme Court.
This time, the appellant was a Warri-based attorney whom the NBA had actually brought before the LPDC for apparently getting cash by false pretense as the purchase cost for land that did not come from him.
At the conclusion of the hearing, the LPDC discovered the legal representative culpable and directed the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court to strike his name off the Roll of Legal Practitioners.
It likewise purchased the disbarred attorney to reimburse the amount of N1.6 million to the small plaintiff, Mr. Tosan Olukpe, through the NBA within 30 days.
The judgment resulted in appeal number SC/481/2018, Ben Mene-Ejegi v. NBA & & LPDC, which the Supreme Court has actually trusted to divest itself of jurisdiction to captivate direct appeals from the LPDC.
When the case was called, the peak court had actually suo motu raised a concern for the celebrations to deal with on whether an appeal lies straight from an instructions of the LPDC to the Supreme Court, in view of its choice in Osuji v LPDC (2025) 17 NWLR (Pt 2014) 317.
In their different submissions, the celebrations concurred that appeals versus LPDC regulations lie to the Supreme Court.
Particularly, the NBA depend on areas 11 and 12( 7) of the LPA to compete that, following the choice in LPDC v Fawehinmi (1985) 2 NWLR (Pt 7), the modifications resulting in Decree No. 21 of 1994 brought back the right of direct appeal.
It argued that the pinnacle court had, in a myriad of chosen cases, regularly exercised its jurisdiction in appeals from the LPDC.
The celebrations even more drew the court’s attention to its choice in Okike v LPDC (2005) 3-4 SC 49, which they stated verified that area 233( 1) of the 1999 Constitution did not specifically or impliedly oust its jurisdiction to hear such appeals.
In the bulk judgment, nevertheless, 5 Justices on the panel, after dismissing the celebrations’ submissions, held that area 12( 7) of the LPA, to the degree that it claims to provide a direct right of appeal from the LPDC to the Supreme Court, is null and space by virtue of area 1( 3) of the 1999 Constitution (as modified).
Describing area 233 of the Constitution, which gives on the Supreme Court jurisdiction to hear appeals from the Court of Appeal, the panel kept in mind that area 240 empowers the Court of Appeal to captivate appeals from a variety of courts and tribunals.
Conjuring up the Latin maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius, the bulk worried that although the National Assembly might broaden the appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal by statute, such as the LPA, it has no matching power to provide extra appellate jurisdiction on the Supreme Court.
The Court held that no Act of the National Assembly can expand the appellate jurisdiction of the pinnacle court beyond the limitations specifically recommended by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court held that an appeal can reach it just from the Court of Appeal.
The legal representative’s appeal versus the LPDC was dismissed by the Supreme Court for desire of jurisdiction.
The judgment appears to have actually exposed a space that might weaken the LPDC’s choices, especially considering that aggrieved attorneys have no lawfully feasible channel of appeal.
Currently, on September 28, the Federal High Court in Abuja stopped the enforcement of a judgment by the LPDC that enforced a three-year suspension on a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Joe Kyari Gadzama.
The senior attorney was implicated of poaching a coworker’s quick, which resulted in a grievance of expert misbehavior versus him.
Regardless of his claim of innocence, the LPDC, after thinking about affidavit proof from both celebrations, released a Direction on July 29 enforcing sanctions on Gadzama, consisting of a three-year restriction from practicing law.
Disappointed with the choice, Gadzama, SAN, whose preliminary strategy was to take the matter before the Supreme Court, on August 19 counted on the choice in Ben Mene-Ejegi v. NBA & & LPDC to take an unique path of approaching the high court for leave to make an application for judicial evaluation and to look for an order of certiorari quashing the sanction versus him.
After protecting the court’s consent, he advised it to figure out whether the LPDC’s Direction is responsible to judicial evaluation and responsible to be quashed by an order of certiorari in the scenarios of the case.
The Applicant based his choice to bring the case before the high court on the lack of an appellate system through which he might challenge the LPDC’s Direction, the Appeal Committee of the Body of Benchers having actually stopped to have appellate jurisdiction and the basis for a direct interest the Supreme Court having actually been held not available.
Gadzama informed the court that, in his quote to get rid of any iota of doubt concerning the status of appeals versus the LPDC’s Direction, he had actually composed a letter to the Body of Benchers, asking for the constitution or operationalization of its Appeal Committee to allow him to challenge his suspension.
He stated that by a letter dated August 13, the legal body notified him that under today statutory structure, there is no statutory arrangement developing an Appeal Committee, stating it would be not able to establish one with appellate jurisdiction, in view of the Supreme Court choice in Ben Mene-Ejegi’s case.
He wished the intervention of the court, regreting that the sanction versus him would end up being personnel and enforceable regardless of the lack of a reliable appellate treatment.
Expectedly, both the Body of Benchers and the LPDC, noted as participants in the matter, prompted the court to dismiss Gadzama’s application, which they stated made up a gross abuse of the judicial procedure.
It was the participants’ contention that the high court was bereft of the jurisdiction to work out supervisory power over the LPDC, its procedures or Direction.
They competed that matters verging on expert misbehavior by or versus legal specialists are not noted under area 251 of the Constitution, which governs the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
Firmly insisting that the discipline of legal specialists is not linked to the jurisdiction of the court, the participants argued that, contrary to the depositions of the Applicant, judicial evaluation is not the proper treatment to challenge the LPA on any supposed breach of area 36( 2) of the Constitution, in the light of the current Supreme Court decision that overruled area 12( 7) of the Act.
More so, they argued that Gadzama had no factor to request judicial evaluation of the procedures of the LPDC that resulted in the sanction versus him, considering that he confessed that he totally took part in the procedures.
They even more argued that an application for judicial evaluation is just readily available where an administrative or quasi-judicial body surpasses its jurisdiction, breaches the guidelines of natural justice, or stops working to follow necessary guidelines.
Providing his judgment in the matter, Justice Obiora Egwuatu discovered benefit in Gadzama’s case and provided an order stopping the enforcement of the choice of the LPDC.
Justice Egwuatu held that it would be unjustified to permit the application of the choice of the Committee, which is not the last arbiter, in the lack of a chance for an attract a greater judicial body.
“The law has actually constantly been that where there is a right, there is a solution. This teaching is revealed in the Latin maxim ubi jus, ibi remedium.
“This maxim is among the earliest concepts of law and the fulcrum of justice that mentions that where there is a right, there is a solution. See BabaYusuf v. Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc (2025) LPELR-80393(CA).
“The Applicant’s right of appeal can not be expropriated from him or rejected him in scenarios not produced by him and which might have been prevented by the 1st and 2nd Respondents had they taken a hint from the choice of the Supreme Court in Ben Mene-Ejegi’s case, provided on the 26th of June, 2026, before the 2nd Respondent sat and released her instructions on the 29th of July, 2026.
“Taking the Applicant’s right of appeal from him and continuing to execute the 2nd Respondent’s instructions even before the Applicant exercises his constitutional right of appeal will belong to beating a kid and asking him not to sob. That will not be justice.
“It is on the basis of the above that I discover some benefit in this application,” Justice Egwuatu held.
To name a few, he disallowed the publication of the LPDC’s Direction as a last disciplinary decision versus the Applicant up until such a time that he is supplied an opportunity to exercise his constitutional right of appeal ensured by the Constitution and within the time enabled such an appeal.
As it stands, the judgments of the Supreme Court and the High Court posture a significant difficulty to an essential disciplinary system in the judiciary, raising issues about the entrenchment of essential safeguards for the constitutionally ensured rights of access to justice, reasonable hearing, and appeal for legal representatives implicated of expert misbehavior.