Constitution, Structure and Jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal
Abstract
Introduction
Although the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1963 ¹ did not make any provision for the establishment of a Court of Appeal at the federal level, the Constitutions of the different regions ² did so at the regional level,³ to be an intermediate court.⁴ It was in anticipation of the establishment of the Regional Court of Appeal that section 127 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1963, provided for the right of appeal from the High Court to that Court.⁵ Unfortunately, no region was able to establish the court before the 1963 Constitution became moribund in 1966 as a result of the 15th January, 1966 military intervention, the first in the political and constitutional history of the country.⁶ However, the Western State established a State Court of Appeal in 1967.⁷ The establishment of the court was given recognition by the constitution (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Decree, 1967.⁸ By section 3 of the Decree, the Supreme Court ceased to have jurisdiction to hear and determine appeals in any matter from the High Court of the State.⁹
The desirability of otherwise of establishing an intermediate Court of Appeal was a subject of vibrant political and legal debate in the early sixties, particularly as from 1963 when the country attained a republican status. The initial reaction of Nigerians was that the establishment of such a court would compensate litigants of the phasing out of the Privy Council as the highest Court of Appeal for the country, arising from the new judicial status vested in the Supreme Court.¹⁰ A number of Nigerians thought that it was necessary to maintain the traditional two-tier appellate system from the State High Court to the final Court of Appeal,¹¹ as it was the position when the Privy Council was the country's highest Court of Appeal. This was the more popular view. It was later that a more pragmatic and realistic rationale was propagated as basis for the establishment of the court; and it was to reduce the workload
