Log In
updated 10:20 AM UTC, Dec 13, 2023

No Court Empowered NASS To Increase Budget – Falana

The Nation: Activist-lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), on Tuesday faulted the National Assembly’s claim that the Federal High Court empowered it to increase budget estimates.

The lawyer said he was the plaintiff in a 2014 suit that challenged the National Assembly oversight powers on the budget, adding that although it was dismissed for lack of locus standi, the court never made such a pronouncement.

Falana said he challenged the extent of the National Assembly’s oversight powers to rewrite the Appropriation Bill or increase the budget estimates presented to it by the President.

He said in dismissing the case, Justice Gabriel Kolawole questioned his legal right to institute the action and described him as a “meddlesome interloper” despite acknowledging him as “a renowned human rights crusader.”

He said, “No doubt, the learned trial judge said the National Assembly is not a rubber stamp parliament. The incontestable statement has since been twisted to give the very erroneous impression that the power of the National Assembly to increase the budget has been judicially recognised.

“In the entire 22-page judgment the learned trial judge never said that the National Assembly has the power to increase any budget proposal submitted to it by the President. On the contrary, the Federal High Court made it categorically clear that the National Assembly lacks the legislative powers to prepare ‘budget estimates’ for the President or ‘disregard the budget proposals laid before it and substitute it with its own estimates.

“Even though I have taken the legal battle over the dismissal of the case to the Court of Appeal, I wish to state, without any fear of contradiction, that the learned trial judge concurred with my submission that the Constitution has not vested the National Assembly with powers to increase the budget.”

Falana quoted Justice Kolawole as saying: “The whole essence of the ‘budget estimates’ being required to be laid before the third defendant (National Assembly), is to enable the third defendant as the assembly of the representatives of the people, to debate the said ‘budget proposals’ and to make its own well informed legislative inputs into it.

“What the third defendant cannot do is to prepare ‘budget estimates’ for the first defendant (President) or to disregard the proposals laid before it and substitute it with its own estimates. The rationale for this is simple: It is the Executive Arm under the leadership of the 1st Defendant that controls and superintends all agencies, corporations and commissions that generate the revenue for the running of the government.”

According to Falana, the judge rightly stated that the National Assembly was not a “rubber stamp parliament” because it is empowered to debate and make its informed inputs into budget proposals.

Tagged under

Leave a Reply