Jennifer Ugwueke
The suit filed by Senator Dino Melaye against the controversial infectious disease Bill sponsored by Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila.has been dismissed by The Federal High Court, Abuja on Tuesday 30th June.
Melaye, a former Kogi West senator, in his suit had challenged some of the provisions of the bill.
However, when the matter came up in the court on Tuesday , Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu upheld the notices of preliminary objection filed against the suit for lack of jurisdiction to hear it.
The judge ruled that the issue Melaye raised in his suit was not justiciable because the bill could not be a subject of litigation until it was signed into law.
In a suit he instituted on May 5, 2020, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/463/2020, the former senator had prayed the court to delete sections 5, 8, 15, 16 and 17 of the bill.
He argued that those sections of the bill constituted a violation or would likely violate his rights under the Nigerian Constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights as well the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Some of the sections of the proposed bill Melaye had wanted deleted are those that want to have the Director-General of the NCDC given the power to compel anyone to take medical examination or treatment and to collect the blood sample of such person in the case of a public health emergency.
Also included were the provisions that seek to empower the NCDC to arrest and detain a suspected infected person as well as the power to take over any premises and turn them into isolation centres without compensation for the owner.
The respondents to the suit, which has now been sacked, include the Clerk of the National Assembly, the Clerk of the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, and the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu.
But the judge struck out the IGP’s name on the grounds that the plaintiff failed to disclose any course of action against him.