Sometime in 2014 I had cause to challenge the extent of the oversight powers of the National Assembly to rewrite the Appropriation Bill or increase the budget estimates presented to it by the President. (See Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/295/2014: Femi Falana v The President and 3 Ors).

In dismissing the case, the respected learned trial judge, the Honourable Justice G. O. Kolawole questioned my locus standi to institute the action after he had described me as “a renowned human rights crusader” and acknowledged my humble contributions to “the development of human rights jurisprudence in Nigeria”. In justifying the dismissal of the suit, his lordship said that the reliefs sought in the case qualified me to be described as a “meddlesome interloper”!

No doubt, the learned trial judge said that 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.

Thus, in a press statement credited to the National Assembly last week, it was reported that “The Federal High Court has ruled that the National Assembly has the power to increase or review upward the budget estimates laid before it by the executive.” With respect, the summary of the decision of the court by the National Assembly is grossly misleading.
In the entire 22-page judgement 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.

According to Justice Kolawole, “The 3rd Defendant (National Assembly) was not created by the drafters of the Constitution and imbued with the powers to receive ‘budget estimates’ which the 1st Defendant (The President) is constitutionally empowered to prepare and lay before it as a rubber stamp parliament.

The whole essence of the ‘budget estimates’ being required to be laid before the 3rd defendant, is to enable the 3rd 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 3rd defendant cannot do is to prepare ‘budget estimates’ for the 1st defendant 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

In rounding up on this judgement, let me state it clearly and for the avoidance of doubts, that the concept of checks and balances as a corollary to the constitutional doctrine of separate of powers which constitutes the philosophical foundation upon which the CFRN, 1999 (as Amended) is established, was never intended to confer on the 3rd Defendant in the exercise of its ‘oversight’ functions over other arms of government to be exercised as to usurp or arrogate to itself the exercise of substantive constitutional powers expressly vested and conferred on the 1st Defendant or any other arms of government.
For instance, adjudicatory powers vested in the Courts, or the powers to conduct criminal investigations and to prosecute persons who may be alleged to have committed indictable felonies under existing laws or Acts of the National Assembly. To do that will invariably be a violation of the whole doctrine of separation of powers and will lead to ‘legislative tyranny’.

The drafters of the Constitution never for a moment, intended to create and make any arm of government, superior to the others, and never fashioned a constitutional arrangement in which the National Assembly will be imbued with legislative powers that are limitless.”

From the foregoing, it is crystal clear that the learned trial judge rightly stated that the National Assembly is not a “rubber stamp parliament” on the ground that it is empowered by the Constitution to debate and make its informed inputs into the budget proposals submitted to it by the President.

But nowhere in the judgement did the Federal High Court say that the National Assembly has the power to increase or insert new items like constituency projects into the budget estimates contained in any Appropriation Bill or Supplementary Bill prepared and submitted to it by the President. However, it is pertinent to state that the seeming lacuna in section 81 of the Constitution has been sufficiently addressed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act No 31 of 2007.

Section 13 thereof has imposed a mandatory duty on the Minister of Finance to seek inputs from the National Assembly and other relevant statutory bodies in the preparation of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework which shall be approved by the Federal Executive Council. And pursuant to section 18 of the Act the Medium Term Expenditure Framework shall be the basis “for the preparation of the estimates of revenue and expenditure to be prepared and laid before the National Assembly under section 81 of the Constitution.”

It is submitted that it is at the stage of preparing the Medium Term Expenditure Framework that the members National Assembly may influence the introduction of new items or inclusion of projects to be executed in their constituencies. Therefore, the National Assembly cannot prepare any aspect of the budget estimates, lay it before itself, pass same and then request the President to sign it into law.

Finally, to ensure that the preparation of the Appropriation Bill is based on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, passed by the National Assembly, signed into law by the President and implemented by the Executive arm of government section 51 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act has specifically clothed every citizen with the necessary locus standi or legal capacity to enforce the provisions of the law by obtaining prerogative orders or other remedies at the Federal High Court, without having to show any special particular interest.

By: Femi Falana
Source: The Newtelegraph News