A Federal High Court sitting at Abuja, Nigeria, has barred the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) from imposing fines on Nigerian broadcast stations.
Presiding Judge, James Omotosho, in a ruling on Wednesday, said the NBC lacked the judicial powers to impose penalties.
The Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda (MRA) had, in an originating motions marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1386/2021, sued the NBC as sole respondent in the suit.
Omotosho gave an order of perpetual injunction restraining the NBC from imposing fines, henceforth, on broadcast stations in the country.
He also set aside the N500,000 fine imposed, on March 1, 2019, on each of the then 45 broadcast stations.
Justice Omotosho held that the NBC, not being a court of law, had no power to impose sanctions as punishment on broadcast stations.
He further held that the NBC Code, which gives the commission the power to impose sanction, is in conflict with Section 6 of the Constitution that vested judicial power in the court of law.
He said the court would not sit idle and watch a body imposing fine arbitrarily without recourse to the law.
He said that the commission did not comply with the law when it sat as a complainant and at the same time, the court and the judge on its own matter.
The judge agreed that the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, being a subsidiary legislation that empowers an administrative body such as the NBC to enforce its provisions cannot confer judicial powers on the commission to impose criminal sanctions or penalties such as fines.
He also agreed that the commission, not being Nigerian police, had no power to conduct criminal investigation that would lead to criminal trial and imposition of sanctions.
“This will go against the doctrine of separation of powers,” he said.
Omotosho held that what the doctrine sought to achieve was to prevent tyranny by concentrating too much powers in one organ.
“The action of the respondent qualifies as excessiveness” as it had ascribed to itself the judicial and executive powers.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the NBC had, on March 1, 2019, imposed the sum of N500,000 each on 45 broadcast stations in the country over alleged violation of its code.