Falana advocates review of SAN criteria

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Falana, has called for the review of the criteria by which the rank of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria is awarded. Falana, who noted that the SAN rank was originally fashioned after the rank of the Queens Counsel in the United Kingdom, said the SAN rank would be irrelevant unless it is awarded in the same way that the QC is awarded. According to the SAN, a situation where activists and radical lawyers are deliberately excluded from the inner bar on the excuse that they do not satisfy the requirements is illegal. Falana likened the situation to the way the colonial government denied the first Nigerian lawyer, Christopher Sapara Williams, the King’s Counsel award because of his activism. Falana who made his position known through an article made available to our correspondent called on the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee, which presides over the award of the SAN rank, to review the criteria or otherwise abolish it. He said, “The colonial legacy was abolished in 1964 in line with the republican status of the country. The rank was however restored in 1973 under a military dictatorship. With the restoration of democracy, the rank (SAN) ought to be abolished without any further delay. If it is going to be retained the LPPC should no longer be allowed to make it business as usual. Its attention ought to be drawn to the current practice in the United Kingdom where all lawyers who satisfy the laid down criteria are automatically conferred with the rank of Queen’s Counsel. Since we copied the practice of honouring distinguished lawyers from the United Kingdom we cannot afford to be more catholic than the people. “In strict compliance with Section 42 of the Constitution which has abolished discriminatory practice, the conferment of the rank of SAN should be democratised. This submission accords with the Guidelines for the Rank of SAN which have not pegged the annual award to any number of lawyers. In other words, there is no justification for picking 17 out of the multitude of lawyers that meet the prerequisites every year. After all, the LPPC approved the conferment of the rank on 25 legal practitioners in 2006. In the same vein, 25 legal practitioners were honoured with the rank in 2012.”