The National Broadcasting Commission is prohibited from fining Nigerian broadcast stations by an Abuja Federal High Court.
In a decision on Wednesday, Presiding Judge James Omotosho declared that the NBC lacked the legal authority to issue sanctions.
Omotosho issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the NBC from going forward and fining broadcast stations in the nation.
Additionally, he cancelled the N500,000 fines that were issued on each of the 45 broadcast stations on March 1, 2019.
According to Justice Omotosho, the NBC lacked the authority to punish broadcast stations because it was not a court of law.
He further asserted that Section 6 of the Constitution, which gave courts of law the exclusive right to exercise judicial authority, conflicts with the NBC Code, which grants the commission the authority to issue sanctions.
He declared that the court would not do nothing while a body arbitrarily imposed a fine without following the law.
He said that the commission broke the law by appearing before the court and the judge on its own case while also acting as a complainant.
The judge concluded that the Nigeria Broadcasting Code cannot grant the commission judicial authority to impose criminal sanctions or penalties, such as fines, because it is a subsidiary law that enables an administrative body, such as the NBC, to implement its requirements.
He also concurred that the commission lacked the authority to launch a criminal inquiry that would result in a criminal prosecution and the application of sanctions because it was not the Nigerian police.
“This will go against the doctrine of separation of powers,” he said.
Omotosho held that what the doctrine sought to achieve was to prevent tyranny by concentrating too much powers in one organ.
“The action of the respondent qualifies as excessiveness” as it had ascribed to itself the judicial and executive powers.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the NBC had, on March 1, 2019, imposed the sum of N500, 000 each on 45 broadcast stations in the country over alleged violation of its code.
However, the NBC was named as the only respondent in the lawsuit by the Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda in an originating move designated FHC/ABJ/CS/1386/2021.
The group requested a declaration that the sanctions method used by the NBC to impose N500,00Q fines on each of the 45 broadcast stations on March 1, 2019, was against the principles of natural justice in a motion dated Nov. 9, 2021 by its attorney, Noah Ajare.
The attorney added that the fines violated both Article 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (Cap AQ) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) by denying the right to a fair hearing.
The group argued that this was the case because the NBC wrote and adopted the code that was alleged to have resulted in the offenses against which the broadcast stations were charged, “and also gives powers to the said commission to receive complaints of alleged breaches, investigate and adjudicate the complaints, impose sanctions, including fines, and ultimately collect the fines, which the commission uses for its own purposes.”
Therefore, they requested a court order to vacate the N500,000 fines that the NBC allegedly issued on each of the 45 broadcast stations on Friday, March 1, 2019.
They also requested “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondent, its servants, agents, privies, representatives or anyone acting for or on its behalf, from imposing fines on any of the broadcast stations or any other broadcast station in Nigeria for any alleged offence committed under the Nigerian Broadcasting Code.”
Justice Omotosho, who delivered the ruling, characterized the NBC’s action as extra vires.
He claimed that the fines levied by the NBC as punishment for different offenses under its code were illegal and were therefore found to be unconstitutional, invalid, and void.
The judge also issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the commission from punishing broadcast stations in the nation with fines in the future.
