Court Dismisses a Former President’s Appeal and Other Legal News

Court of Appeal Guts Police Regulations.

May 7^th, 2024

The Abuja Court of Appeal declared unconstitutional a police regulation prohibiting unmarried policewomen from conceiving. The court reasoned that the provision is unconstitutional as same is in contravention with the provisions of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.  

The case involved one Omolola Olajide, a policewoman in Ekiti State Command who was dismissed summarily from the Police Service for conceiving while unmarried. The trial judge ruled in favour of the Police Service. However, on appeal, the Appeal Court in a refreshing turn of event decided unanimously that the said provisions in the Police regulation were unconstitutional and therefore same was set aside.  

Court Declines Obasanjo’s Request to Relist Defamation Suit.

7^th May 2024

A Federal High Court in Abuja dismissed an application by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo was seeking an order to relist an earlier defamation suit against the Punch newspaper. In the ruling, the Judge held that the case had earlier been dismissed by the court. Accordingly, the former President could not come through the back door to relitigate the suit.

In 2019, the former president filed a suit against the Punch newspaper for defamation of character. However, after the preliminary filings, lawyers for Mr. Obasanjo moved the court to discontinue the case. 

Having discontinued his case, the former President sought another opportunity to start matters afresh to which the court declined.

Customers of FTX Poised to Recover Lost Funds.

7th May 2024

Recall some months back, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for the stealing of $8 billion from his now bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange. This week it was announced that Customers of the bankrupt company are poised to recover lost funds with interests.

The funds will be obtained from a pool of assets belonging to FTX, which have been pulled together after the collapse of the firm. The assets include digital currencies that FTX possesed when it filed for bankruptcy. The payment however comes with a caveat: the amount owed to each customer will be based on the value of their holdings at the time FXT filed for bankruptcy in 2022, suggesting that, customers will not benefit from the recent increase in crypto. 

Orphanage Abusers Sentences Quashed

11^th May 2024

The Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburg, Scotland quashed the three–year prison sentences of a nun and a care worker who abused vulnerable children at a Scottish orphanage. The abusers, Sister Eileen, 79 and Margaret Hughes, 77, mistreated children at Smyllum Park in Lanark from 1969 to 1981 when the orphanage closed. 

After Sister Eileen and Margaret Hughes were convicted and sentenced, their lawyers proceeded to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburg to argue that the sentences were hash considering their age and that the original three-year sentence imposed on their clients, both in their seventies did not take account of their age.