Judiciary can’t gag lawmakers over hijab controversy – Dogara

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, on Thursday said some Nigerians were “intimidating” the Judiciary to “gag” the National Assembly.

He made the remark after Hon. Razak Atunwa, from Kwara state, raised a motion on a recent court judgment restraining the House from holding public hearing on the Hijab controversy.

There is an ongoing legal battle between the Nigerian Law School and a law graduate Amasa Firdaus.

Firdaus, last December, was denied her call to the bar by the Body of Benchers for refusing to take off her headscarf.

The hijab is a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion.

The matter was taken to the house and a public hearing was fixed for it.

But a group of lawyers filed a suit asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop the House from conducting the hearing- a prayer the court granted.

At Thursday’s plenary, the lawmakers accused the judiciary of “crossing the line” regarding its constitutional role.

“We know that Nigeria is not a Banana Republic and operates on basic principles such as rule of law and separation of powers, which states that none of the arms of government should gag the other,” Dogara said.

“Just as we cannot gag the judiciary, we also expect same from them. We make laws and the constitution only empowers them to interpret the laws.

“But, for us to sit here and the judiciary tells us what we should consider and not consider and when to sit, then, we are no longer practising democracy.

“I don’t think it is us that is intimidating the judiciary, as it is being alleged. It is some people that are intimidating them from somewhere else, to gag the National Assembly.

“We have respected the judiciary a lot and we expect same from them. When the judiciary gets to the level they are now, that spells danger for our democracy. If they insist they must continue this way, we have to part ways.”

The speaker, thereafter, set up an ad-hoc committee to look into the matter.