BY ANAYO OKOLI

ABA – Lawyers in Aba, Abia State, yesterday, called for the transfer of Justice Theresa Uzokwe for treating them with levity. Not even the intervention of the Acting Chief Judge, Justice Shedrack Nwanosike, could stop the lawyers’ protest.

The lawyers accused the Judge of not according lawyers respect, alleging that she treated them with disdain. For example, they alleged that on more than two occasions, she had punished lawyers whose cell phones rang unknowingly in the court.

In one instance, they alleged that Justice Uzokwe stood a lawyer up for two hours behind the dock as a punishment in the presence of litigants because his cell phone rang, while in another case she was said to have asked an elderly lawyer to kneel down for the same offence.

Yet in another case, she was said to have directed her police orderly to smash the phone of a lawyer, in spite of appeals from Chairman of Aba branch of NBA, Mr. Charles Eduzor.

On the strength of these allegations, the lawyers on Monday picketed High Court 2 which she presides over, and in a resolution that preceded the picketing,  Aba NBA called on the NJC to either retire or remove Uzokwe as a Judge of High Court of Abia State.

Aba Bar also called on the acting Chief Judge of the State to transfer Justice Uzokwe, pending when NJC would take action to transfer her out of Aba Judicial Division and its environs.

Worried by the development, the Acting Chief Judge met with the Judge and representatives of NBA under closed door, but the meeting was said to have ended in stalemate as the lawyers insisted that Justice Uzokwe must be transferred out of Aba Division.

Speaking after the meeting, Charles Eduzor, Aba NBA chairman, said they gave the Judge the opportunity to respond to series of reports that bordered on misconduct against her which their members brought daily, and which were equally communicated to the Acting Chief Judge.

“There were lawyers who merely recommended sureties to accused persons and ended up in Police cell for not producing the accused persons. Meanwhile the lawyer did not take the client on bail. It is the responsibility of the surety to produce the accused.

“A lawyer’s phone mistakenly rang in court and she ordered a policeman to smash the phone and the phone was smashed and the pieces brought to court, which is an act of malicious damage.

“It is not a judicial act. Even if she intended to smash the phone, the lawyer should have been given a trial, but she did not give the lawyer a fair hearing before destroying his phone.

“Another lawyer’s phone rang again, she stood him up with wig and robe, behind the dock and that is turning the law on its head. She would have de-robed the lawyer before punishing him,” Eduzor lamented.

The NBA chairman said if the authorities refused to transfer the judge, lawyers would continue to picket the court until she left  the division, either voluntarily or involuntarily.