The Senate has said that the Supreme Court lacked the power to stop it and the House of Representatives from performing their legislative duties as far as the process of amending the 1999 Constitution was concerned.
In the first reaction to the ruling of the Court stopping the legislature from going ahead with the amendment, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Information and Public Affairs, Eyinnaya Abaribe, said that the court was wrong to stop the lawmakers in the performance of their legislative duties.
President Goodluck Jonathan had referred to the court for interpretation some jurisdictional concerns in the proposed amendments.
“The law does not allow one arm of the government to stop another arm of government from performing its duties. The Supreme Court cannot stop us from legislating and if they say that it (Supreme Court) is stopping us from making laws, it is misleading and it amounts to misreading the powers of the Supreme Court,”Enyinna said in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Sunday.
A seven-member Supreme Court panel led by Chief Justice Mahmud Mohammed had last Thursday fixed June 18 for further hearing on the case, by which date the tenure of the current assembly would have ended.
President Goodluck Jonathan had withheld his assent to the 4th Alteration Bill to the 1999 Constitution. The bill had already been passed by the National Assembly and the 36 state Houses of Assembly before it was forwarded to Jonathan for his signature.
The President cited alleged breaches of Section 9 of the same constitution, arguing mainly that the lawmakers did not meet the mandatory four-fifth majority approval to alter the document. Jonathan followed up his refusal by dragging the legislature to the apex court in a suit filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN).
