By EMEKA MAMAH
The Forum of Nigerian Capital Market Stakeholders, FNCMS, has asked the Federal Government to review its standards for appointing ''judges'' into the Investment and Securities Tribunal, IST.
The stakeholders said that some of the out-going ''judges'' of the IST were so ignorant of the capital market issues they were expected to adjudicate upon, that they could neither read their case files nor write judgements for the cases they handled.
''They do not read their case files and so rely on staff to write judgements for them. The judgements are written by staff and the members' lack of competence during court proceedings has often embarrassed the public while the Court of Appeal has criticised the quality of transcripts from the Tribunal.
"You will be ashamed of the mundane issues contained in their verbatim recordings when serious business interests are at stake. It's really a shame!,'' they stated.
In a petition to the Minister of Finance which was copied to President Goodluck Jonathan, the State Security Service, SSS, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, among other government agencies, the FNCMS expressed worry that the out-going judges could not handle more than one case in a year because of lack of understanding of the issues involved.
In the petition dated Janu ''Note please that the IST was conceived and set up as a specialized court to adjudicate and settle disputes within 90 days (3 months). This arrangement is aimed at giving comfort to litigants and investors that the Capital Market is safe and operates under the rule of law.
''Sadly, the Tribunal as presently constituted has not lived up to the objectives and expectations of investors and government in this regard.
Vanguard Nigeria