ADMINISTRATIVE LAW — Tribunals of Inquiry — Quasi-Judicial Functions — Power of Arrest
Principle Statement
The power to arrest a person who refuses to attend a tribunal is a judicial venture. Summons to appear as a witness is a known court process. When refusal is followed by arrest and possible incarceration, the process becomes judicial or quasi-judicial, not administrative.
Ratio Decidendi (Source)
Per Tobi, JSC, in A.G., Lagos State v. Eko Hotels Limited & Anor (2006) NLC-123-147-2002(SC) at pp. 73–74; Paras E–B.
"The power of arrest of a person, who refuses to attend the Tribunal, is a judicial venture. Summons to appear as a witness is a known Court process… When the refusal on the part of the person to honour the summons and attend the Tribunal to give evidence, is followed by an arrest and possible incarceration, the punitive and penal nature of the process is complete. Such a suffocating order, which lands the contemnor in prison, cannot be interpreted as a mere administrative function but a judicial or quasi-judicial one."
Explanation / Scope
Tribunals with arrest powers perform judicial or quasi-judicial functions, not mere administrative ones. The principle applies to administrative law.
