If there be no judicial forgiveness
For that felon that must hang
By the merciful noose of our law;
And no judicial admonition
For that convict that must wang
By the glorious bullets of our firing squad;
And no judicial compassion
For that adulteress that must lang
By the soothing stones of our sharia executioners;
Should there be societal acquittal
For those Law Lords of the Supreme Oracle
Who, relying on a frail legal principle,
Allow an illegal sentence stand?
A pat in the back of Methuselah by the Lords
For rupturing a child’s chaste hymen—
Should there be societal acquittal
For those Law Lords of the Supreme Oracle
Who, relying on a frail legal principle,
Allow an illegal sentence stand?
An illegality staring at the Oracle in the eye
Demands a remedy, not a regretful sigh
Whether or not a ground on it does lie.
Should there be societal acquittal
For those Law Lords of the Supreme Oracle
Who, relying on a frail legal principle,
Allow an illegal sentence stand?
–Bolaji Ramos, Esq.
Copyrighted
[1] This is a criminal case decided by the Supreme Court in 2016. The Appellant, Lucky, was found guilty of the offence of raping a minor and thereafter sentenced by the trial judge to 4 years imprisonment when in actual fact the law(mandatorily) prescribes life imprisonment for the offence of rape. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment of the trial court and the Appellant further appealed to the Supreme Court. In further affirming the judgment, the Supreme Court lamented bitterly (without doing anything to remedy to wrong sentencing) that the Appellant ought to have been sentenced to life imprisonment as mandatorily required by the provisions of the law under which the Appellant was charged. The Supreme Court found that the sentence of the Appellant by the trial judge is a contemptuous and contumacious departure, violation of and derogation from the provision of section 357 of the Criminal Code of Delta State. The Supreme Court indirectly indicted the trial judge for the exercising discretion to act against the law, but on the long run the Supreme Court did not correct the illegal abridgment of the sentence by the trial judge solely on the ground that the appeal before the Supreme Court did not border on the sentence but on something else.
