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Supreme Court · 1981
What approach should a court take when construing a provision of the Constitution?
What you are reading
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This decision is reported in the Nigerian law reports. Locate it by its case name in a law report series or through the court's own record, and read the judgment before relying on it.
The question the court actually had to answer. Everything a judgment settles flows from this, and nothing beyond it does.
What approach should a court take when construing a provision of the Constitution?
A criminal appeal raised a question about the jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution, and so required the Supreme Court to decide how constitutional provisions are to be read.
The Court held that the Constitution should be given a broad and generous construction that serves its purpose.
A narrow or technical reading should not be preferred where it would defeat what the provision was plainly intended to achieve.
Stated narrowly, as the case is genuinely cited for — not stretched into the broader proposition it is often summarised as.
The Constitution is interpreted broadly and purposively, not with the narrow technicality applied to ordinary statutes.
Our explanation of what the decision means for an ordinary reader. It is not the judgment.
Judges read the Constitution differently from the way they read an ordinary Act. It is the founding document, meant to last, so it is read for its purpose rather than picked apart word by word to reach a cramped result.
This is the case lawyers cite whenever the other side's reading of a constitutional provision is technically available but obviously defeats the point of the provision.
The part most summaries leave out, and the part that most often causes a case to be cited for something it never decided.
Named generally. Read the official text of any instrument you intend to rely on.
This decision is reported in the Nigerian law reports. Locate it by its case name in a law report series or through the court's own record, and read the judgment before relying on it.
Subject area: The Constitution