No live broadcast of tribunal proceedings, court rules

Bola Tinubu

The presidential election petitions tribunal has dismissed an application for a live broadcast of its proceedings on matters arising from the February 25 presidential election.

In a unanimous ruling, the court held that the application has no basis in any known law or judicial procedure.

Presiding Justice Haruna Tsammani stated that the court’s proceedings shall not be kept secret but unchecked access of different kinds of gadgets could turn the court into a marketplace.

“The proceedings shall not be kept secret. It does not mean the court should be turned to a market square,” he said.

He further ruled that the live televising of the court proceeding is of no value to the case before the court since the parties to the suit including members of the press already have access to the tribunal.

Mr Tsammani added that there is no already existing institutional or policy framework that the court could rely on to grant the application without express policy formulations by the administrators of the judiciary.

We have recently deactivated our website’s comment provider in favour of other channels of distribution and commentary. We encourage you to join the conversation on our stories via our Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages.