Request for live broadcast of election tribunal sitting: Court is not stadium for live broadcast, panel tells Atiku, Obi
The Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja on Monday rejected the applications for live broadcast of proceedings in Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi’s petitions challenging Bola Tinubu’s victory as Nigeria’s president-elect.
Penpushing reports that, the five-member panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani in the ruling declared that there was no legal basis for its proceedings to be broadcast live, citing section 36 of the Nigerian constitution.
The panel emphasized and held that fair hearing of court proceedings does not amount to conducting court sittings on television or in a stadium, noting that the issue of live broadcast of court hearings has to be a judicial policy that would be put in place by the heads of courts.
‘The request (for a live broadcast of the court proceedings) has no utilitarian value. Live broadcast of court proceedings has no provisions in our statutory books. There is nowhere in the constitution and Electoral Act for televising court sittings”,Tsammani stated
“Live broadcast of proceedings is a judicial policy. We cannot permit a procedure that dramatises the court’s proceedings. This application is devoid of merit and it is accordingly dismissed” the court declared.
Penpushing further reports that it is recalled that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP) had urged the court to allow a live broadcast of its sessions owing to the magnitude of the dispute.
The legal teams of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu,of the All Progressives Congress(APC), and Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) had opposed the application for live broadcast of the proceedings of the Presidential Election Petition Court.
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