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Federal Excessive Court docket in Abuja, yesterday, declared null and void the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code authorising Nationwide Broadcasting Fee (NBC) to impose fines on broadcast stations for breaches of the code.
The courtroom dominated that administrative and regulatory our bodies couldn’t train judicial powers.
The judgment was on a go well with instituted by Media Rights Agenda (MRA) in opposition to the NBC following the Fee’s imposition of fines of N5 million every on a tv station and three pay TV platforms in 2022 for allegedly undermining Nigeria’s nationwide safety by broadcasting documentaries on banditry in Nigeria.
Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia held that the NBC, not being a courtroom of legislation, acted above its powers by imposing such fines. The choose recommended MRA for its authorized problem of the NBC’s motion and issued an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Fee or anybody appearing on its behalf from additional imposing any tremendous on any media platform or broadcast station in Nigeria for any alleged offence dedicated underneath the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia put aside the fines imposed by the NBC on August 3, 2022 on Multichoice Nigeria Restricted, house owners of DSTV; TelCom Satellite tv for pc Restricted (TSTV); Belief-TV Community Restricted; and NTA Startimes Restricted for broadcasting a documentary concerning the state of banditry and safety in Zamfara State, saying the regulator’s motion was incorrect and unjustifiable in a democratic society.
Abuja-based human rights lawyer, Uche Amulu, filed the go well with on behalf of MRA, asking the courtroom to carry, amongst different issues, the NBC’s motion of imposing a tremendous on every of the media platforms and the station for broadcasting a documentary concerning the state of banditry and safety in Zamfara State is illegal and unconstitutional and has a chilling impact on the liberty of media to impart info and concepts.
MRA contended that it might deter the platforms and station from reporting the true state of affairs concerning the safety state of affairs in Nigeria, and due to this fact constitutes a violation of the rights of MRA, its members, and different residents of Nigeria to freedom of expression, significantly their rights to obtain concepts and knowledge with out interference, as assured by the Structure and the African Constitution on Human and Folks’s Rights.
MRA additionally sought a declaration that the process adopted by the NBC in imposing the fines is a flagrant violation of the principles of pure justice and the correct to truthful listening to underneath Part 36 of the Structure and Article 7 of the African Constitution because the Fee is the drafter of the Code, which supplies for the alleged offences for which the media platforms and the station had been punished, and which empowers the NBC to obtain complaints, examine and adjudicate on the complaints, impose fines and accumulate fines.
In her judgment, Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia agreed with all MRA’s arguments and granted all of the prayers of the organisation. She, nonetheless, refused to grant the organisation’s declare for N700,000 as prices it incurred in litigating the motion; one other declare for N2 million as normal damages for NBC’s infringement on its rights in addition to a request for N1 million as punitive damages for the Fee’s “outrageous conduct in abusing its powers and arbitrarily imposing fines on broadcasting stations”.
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