However, as good as the move to deprive those public officers of the privilege of having police orderlies, guarding them for the twin reason for which it is being taken – the need for the good exercise of discretion and selectivity; Judges of all Courts of record are susceptible to danger of different types. They therefore deserve adequate protection.
The judges before whom cases of armed robbery, drug trafficking and other anti-social behaviours are brought before, are now being told to drive around town without police orderlies. The new measures will simply expose the judicial officers to grave danger.
The new policy will indirectly gag them. A judge who has to drive with just his driver from Ikeja High Court to his residence in Ikoyi will think twice before convicting a notorious armed robber whose gang members are still roaming the streets. The policy may turn out to be another assault on the independence of the judiciary.
The society cannot give a dangerous assignment of deciding on the life and death of people to a judge and yet refuse to protect that judge. How can they equate their lordships with minion political appointees? It will not be fair for the federal government which made the new policy to wait until some judges are murdered by hoodlums in the open streets before reversing the policy.
When some criminally-minded members of the society realise that top judicial officers do not have the police protection, they can become more daring in attempting to intimidate the judges. There is no justification for giving police protection to governors and speakers of state Houses of Assembly, both of whom headed the executive and legislature in the state while the Chief Judge who is the head of the State Judiciary, the third organ, will be left out. Yet, the same judges are expected to pronounce on the validity of the mandate of the governor and speaker. To whom less is given, less is expected.