Some Picks from Appeal Court's Order; A Lawyers' Position

ASUU: Picks from Appeal Court Order

This development has been well-trashed in a lawyers' forum and the take aways are these:

1. That Order of the Appeal Court with the conditions surrounding it is incapable of being complied with. 

2. Where is the justice in coercing ASUU to comply with what they want to Appeal against? A court doesn't make an order in a vacuum or an order that cannot be enforced. Also, courts do not take sides and they examine every circumstances of what led to the dispute in the first place.

3. Why the Government approached the Court was because they wanted the Lecturers back to classrooms and the Lecturers have been saying that they couldn’t until a workable Agreement is reached.

4. One of the oldest principles in law is *Pacta Sunt Servanda* (“agreements must be kept”). It's the Govt  that has come to equity with "dirty hands", not ASUU. Can the Court close its eyes to the various documented breaches of past agreements? No.

5. In law, once you have shown your intention to appeal by your Notice of Appeal, the _status quo_ would be *before* the Judgment you wish to appeal against. 

6. So, the Court of Appeal insisting that the judgment of the lower court, the NICN must first be obeyed is not the law, we call such as being made _per incuriam_, there's no precedent for that and it can't be cited as precedent for future cases. It's DOA, when taken upstairs to the Supreme Court.

7. The Judgment was against ASUU's Fundamental Rights, thus, it's a good ground to appeal against the Order itself.

8.  When Fundamental Human Rights becomes the issue, it is a different thing entirely and would take precedence as a Constitutional issue.

9. It's also a principle of employment law that you cannot force an unwilling Employee upon an Employer.  

10. Even, the Appeal Court’s Order does not stand a good chance of being implemented within Seven Days since this a body that the President of the Union cannot just give an order like a Military Commander to the Lecturers to go back to the Classrooms. What classrooms?

10. The Appeal Court Judges made the Order from an angle of “ Parents “ which in itself was sentimental. Sentiments have no place in law.

Thank you.