The Extent of Injunctions in Judicial Proceedings

Abstract

Introduction

It is common knowledge that human activities in their socio-economic and legal arena are subject to checks and balances with a view to maintaining social order. Legal control seems to be the most potent of all forms of control requiring obedience from both the rulers and the ruled. The Philosophers who were originally concerned with universal order were envisaging some rules and regulations which will naturally follow to minimize conflicts and chaos to the barest minimum.¹ This seems to be the very foundation upon which the rule of law had been built,² by creating rights, obligations and limitations for social equilibrium regulated by legal order.

It has become a generally accepted norm in a democratic society that judicial intervention is the last hope of a common man rather than applying the law of the jungle to settle issues. In a number of judicial proceedings, some ad-hoc fundamental issues may require an urgent attention for the preservation of the subject-matter pending the final determination of the substantive issue. It is pertinent to note that where the subject-matter or a cause of action is no longer existing at the time the matter is finally disposed of, any judgment delivered by court on the issue would have been rendered nugatory and unenforceable.

One of the judicial powers to preserve the subject-matter of litigation is the court's power to grant an interim, and interlocutory injunction when the matter is pending, or perpetual injunction when the matter is finally disposed of. It is therefore intended in this paper to examine the definition of injunction, the powers of our courts to grant the order in both private and public laws.

The paper intends to avoid semantics regarding the attitudes of different judges or magistrates in exercising their discretionary power to grant an order of injunction. Other prerogative remedies, e.g., certiorari, mandamus and prohibition may only be mentioned in passing along with a stay of proceedings and execution for purposes of appreciating the extent to which applications for injunction can be considered or granted in judicial proceedings.³ In addition, the paper intends to show that injunctions are now used both as private and public remedies.