Chief Judge advocates English language lessons for lawyers

Justice Ishaq Bello, acting Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, has advocated for continuous education for lawyers, particularly in the use of English language. Bello stated this on Wednesday in Abuja at the launch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) stamp and affinity products. The Acting Chief Judge said that it was becoming rather irritating for lawyers to appear before a judge and continuously mix up their tenses in trying to present their cases. He observed that the declining standard of lawyers could be noticed in the quality of legal practice, where a lawyer stands from the bar saying “I didn’t did it” or “I saw them passes”. He urged the leadership of the NBA to do more to further encourage the continued education of lawyers, saying the trend was becoming quite irritating. “All lawyers must go through what is called Language Usage Course (LUC); all lawyers must be exposed to the dynamics of global evolving legal landscape.” He added that the only way lawyers could keep up was for the association to continuously encourage them to learn and urged the older lawyers to provide guidance to the younger ones. Similarly, the Chief Judge of Borno, Justice Kashim Zanna, reiterated Bello’s call, saying that it was quite embarrassing for lawyers to be unable to present their cases in good English language. Zanna also encouraged the NBA to quickly organise the training, saying that the continuous use of bad English by some lawyers in court was robbing off on all lawyers.