NIGERIA PORTS AUTHORITY VS AKAR
September 3, 2025SUN INSURANCE OFFICE LTD VS OJEMUYIWA
September 3, 2025Legalpedia Citation: (1965-01) Legalpedia 99142 (SC)
In the Supreme Court of Nigeria
Holden At Abuja
Sat Jan 9, 1965
Suit Number: SC 28/1965
CORAM
BAIRAMIAN CHIEF JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT
ONYEAMA JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT
AJEGBO JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT
PARTIES
OKUMAGBA
APPELLANTS
EGBE
RESPONDENTS
AREA(S) OF LAW
CRIMINAL LAW-FALSE STATEMENT
SUMMARY OF FACTS
The appellant was convicted of the offence of publishing false statement and has appealed against that conviction
HELD
The court held that the wordings of the statute may be deficient, but it cannot on that account be branded as absurd, and the argument from absurdity was misapplied to bend the regulation to a sense it could not bear, and the decisions of the courts below had to be set aside.
ISSUES
Whether the trial court was right to have altered the wordings of the Parliamentary Electoral Regulations
RATIONES DECIDENDI
FUNCTIONS OF THE COURT
‘But amendment is the function of the legislature, and the courts cannot fill a gap which comes to light by altering the words of a regulation to make it read in the way they think it should have been enacted. As Lord Bacon said in his essay on Judicature, the office of a judge is jus dicere, not jus dare – to state the law, not to give law – and the courts below should not have gone in for “judicial legislation”.- BAIRAMIAN, J.S.C
CASES CITED
STATUTES REFERRED TO
Parliamentary Electoral Regulations, 1960
