The court dismissed all the arguments canvassed by the promoters of the ‘Blue Silk’ aimed as an alternative to the highly coveted SAN rank.
The Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday dismissed a suit seeking to introduce the rank of ‘Blue Silk’ for legal practitioners in Nigeria as an alternative to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
“The argument by the applicants that they have a right to freedom of assembly and association does not come into play here,” the judge said.
“The legal profession is not like joining a political party wherein one can jump from party to party.
“There is only one legal profession in Nigeria duly recognised by statute, thus a person cannot decide to form his own legal profession as the same would be contrary to the law and thus void.”
The judge further held that the applicants’ move to create and confer the rank of Blue Silk on lawyers had no legal backing.
“This therefore means that the acts of the applicants in seeking to award rank of Blue Silk on any legal practitioner in Nigeria is totally void and unrecognised by law,” he said.
According to the judge, the applicants’ actions violated the laws and regulations governing legal practice in Nigeria.
“The applicants cannot hide under fundamental rights to breach statutory provisions. This court will not allow it,” he added.
The judge also held that the applicants failed to prove that their rights to freedom of association and fair hearing were violated.
“The applicants have the burden to establish a breach of their fundamental rights but have utterly failed to do so.
“Their claim is therefore ungrantable and their suit will be dismissed,” he ruled.
The court subsequently issued a perpetual injunction restraining the applicants from conferring the rank of Blue Silk or any similar title on legal practitioners outside the provisions of the Legal Practitioners Act.
The suit was filed by the Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners and Tonye Jaja.
They sued the the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA); Mobolaji Ojibara, the NBA general secretary; Kabir Akanbi, secretary of the LPPC; the LPPC; and the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee (LPDC).
In the suit filed in March, the applicants prayed for, among others, a declaration that the respondents’ actions amounted to a violation of their rights to freedom of assembly and association guaranteed under Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution and Article 10(1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
They also sought an order restraining the respondents from referring them to the LPDC over their push for Blue Silk.
The applicants further demanded N50 million as compensation for the alleged violation of their fundamental rights, a public apology to be published in two national newspapers, and N5 million as cost of the suit.
They also argued that the Legal Practitioners Act did not prohibit the Blue Silk initiative and maintained that the respondents lacked the powers to sanction them over it.
They also claimed that the respondents reached conclusions against them without giving them a fair hearing and published notices that negatively affected their rights.
However, the respondents, in separate counter-affidavits, urged the court to dismiss the suit.
They argued that the applicants lacked the statutory powers to create or confer any legal rank such as Blue Silk on practitioners in Nigeria.
The suit followed a disciplinary notice allegedly issued to Mr Jaja by Mr Ojibara over the promotion of what the NBA described as an unlawful and unrecognised rank for legal practitioners.
The SAN is a highly coveted rank conferred as a mark of honour on lawyers with proven contributions to the development of the Nigerian law through litigation or academics.
The rank is equivalent to the United Kingdom’s King’s Counsel (KC) or Queen’s Counsel (QC), depending who the British monarch is at the material time.
The rank comes with a number of privileges, including reserved seats in the first row, referred to as the inner bar, in courtrooms. SANs also have their cases called first no matter their positions on the court’s cause list for the day.
Such decorated lawyers are unofficially referred to as “Silk”, a name inspired by the silk gown worn by the bearers of the rank. Junior lawyers generally wear standard lawyers’ gowns made from other materials.
Through their suit, the applicants attempted to push for the creation of a separate, unofficial category of prestigious rank for lawyers, called “Blue Silk.”, outside the SAN framework.
In February, PREMIUM TIMES reported that LPPC issued a statement disowning the “Blue Silk” title and warning lawyers against using it.
The statement, signed by the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court and the LPPC Secretary, Mr Akanbi, stressed that the rank of SAN remained the only legally recognised senior rank for lawyers in Nigeria.
