The role of judiciary

1. Resign or remain in office asserting the pre-revolutionary constitution.

2. The Dosso case, Munir CJ dismissed the challenge on the issue of validity of the new
order on Kelsenian grounds. There was an effective control by the military regime and
the people followed the regime made by the regime.
3. The Ugandan case, the Kelsen ground was successfully applied. By remaining in office,
the judges have the discretion to decide which was the constitution established by the law
in which opted for the new constitution under the new regime.
4. Constitution suspended, the High Court was suspended indefinitely. After the revolution
was successful, the High Court opened for function for the cases of those who resisted
Jonathan coup de’etat. Justice Jacobs stressed that the court is not a polling booth to
decide which government represents the people and closed the High Court until it is clear
who was in effective control of the country. The judge did not want the HC to be used a
political tool for the contesting parties and stated that the election should decide the
winner of the election thus in control of the nation, and not the functions and operation of
the court to decide which is which.

GRATIAN NATURAL LAW

- National rights (human ruled by two aspects, law of nature and moral behaviour)
- Golden Rule of Christianity
- Natural Law – Man’s own rights
- Divine Wisdom
- Natural law is not based on reason, it is based on eternal law to god in which it is
consonant to nature.

Francis Suarez – Law has a common just and stable precept

- It controls the nature of man. Just because you are powerful doesn’t mean that you can do
everything you like.