The 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has dismissed the application for live coverage of court proceedings, IgbereTV reports
At the proceeding in Abuja on Monday, Justice Tsammani said the application by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) lacked merit.
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, had filed an application on May 8 for an order to allow the live coverage of the daily court proceedings on the case they brought against the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, following the February 25 election.
The Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, followed suit with a similar application asking that proceedings of the tribunal be televised.
However, a week later, Tinubu opposed the application for a live broadcast of the proceedings of the election petition, describing it as an abuse of court process.
The five-member panel of the Tribunal, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, while dismissing the application on Monday, May 22, held that the request was without merit.
It added that televising court proceedings is not provided for in any extant law in the country.
Justice Tsammani noted that the requirement that the court sits in public did not mean that it should sit in a stadium or in marketplace.
He added that there was no way televising the proceedings could advance the interest of fair hearing for the parties involved or advance the interest of the petitioners in relation to issues raised in their petition.
Justice Tsammani further noted granting the request by Atiku and PDP could trivialize the serious business of the court.
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