 A coroner sitting in Ikeja Magistrates Court in Lagos has banned journalists and other interested parties from covering or witnessing the inquests on the death of a student of Darwin College Lagos, Sylvester Aromani Jr. The registrar of the court announced that the hearing was mainly for lawyers while sending away newsmen. It was learned that the decision was taken due to the appearance of some senior students of Darwin College accused of beating the deceased to death who were also in courts to testify. We are now being joined by a legal practitioner Mr Evans O'Felley and Tunde Ladile. Mr O'Felley and Mr Ladile, good evening to both of you. Good evening to you Mr O'Felley and to you Mr Ladile. Thank you, thank you for joining us on News Now Tonight. So I'll go with you first Mr Evans O'Felley. We've just heard a story, a report about a court sitting in Lagos, that's the coroner inquest court, barring journalists and other people from participating in the hearing of the inquests on the death of Sylvester Aromani. The student who was killed in Darwin College. Now looking at the law, what is applicable in this sense? Is it okay to ban journalists from it, especially with a country that has signed its Freedom of Information bill? Well, yeah, the Freedom of Information bill is actually a law that gives everyone, not journalists, unfettered access to information and then compare institutions, perpetrators and authorities to ensure that they make this information available on demand. But the case in question is quite different under the court system, when a case has to do with a family issue, okay, and a child is involved, how we eat now dead to protect the child, okay, from the general public, it's what we see in court every day, the family courts and the special courts, where children are involved, the courts usually put premium on the utmost interests of the children, whatever the court wants to do, the court must assure that the child is protected, because if you look at the child rights act, the underlying principle that binds the child rights act from start to finish is the protection of the Nigerian child. In this case, the child is demise, okay, but the law still applies. You don't open the floodgates of families, people from the entire public to flood the courts when that issue that has to do with the child is being handled in the court of law, it is not allowed by the rules of the court, the rules of the family court of legal states, you know, the protection of the rights and interests of the child supersedes every other consideration. I know that it is a constitutional right of journalists to get information as provided in that section on the constitution. I know that I also know that it is the right of everybody that the court is a public place that everyone can actually go to the court and then, but when it has to do with the child, there are special consideration that must be taken into, that must be taken by the cognance of, and that is that we're allowing the other public journalists or whoever to jeopardize the purpose for which the court has conveyed the hearing. There is already a restriction, that is to why the lawyers involved, the lawyers on record would come in. The truth is that the journalists will still get the information they want to get on the grounds of both sides after sitting. The most important thing is that the child is protected. Okay, so whilst I understand the situation surrounding this particular kind of case, constitutionally speaking about the law, this effort to guide and guide the children, the children's affairs also contradicts the journalist's job, which is to gather information. Of course, this is a big news that everyone wants to know per second of information, updated information about it, so then what happens? How then does the journalist do, ease our work while trying to gather this kind of information and already barred? The journalist will still do his work, or her work. It is not about the journalist here. If you look at the child rights ads, it's not about the journalist. Even if you look at the constitution too, it is not about the journalist. The constitution also has made coupiers rights to protect the Nigerian child. Okay, to protect them from dangerous exposure and then to protect them from being treated in ways that are dehumanizing. To protect them from a lot of rights are tapped on by the, you see, the right of the journalist to have access to information, no right is actually absolute because there are instances and situations where you have an exception. Undergirding the rights to have, the law is not that the journalist must be there in the court where a child is being, and usually that's who the child is being dealt with. The law is that the journalists have a right to hold government accountable to the citizens. Okay, and in this case, the restrictions are placed for the purposes of protecting the right of the child, giving the right of the child an uttermost consideration for and of both every other subsidiary rights. Okay, now that is why when the issues of custody has been handled in courts, the issue of child rights has been handled in court, child welfare and the rest of it. You find out that there are lovely counsel who are registered in the case, lawyers on record are the ones that sometimes they sit in chambers. They sit in chambers. The magistrate or the judge will sit in chambers to protect the child from the public. Okay, it's a normal practice to lawyers, except for journalists who perhaps maybe some of them are witnessing this for the first time. The right of the child supersedes whatever rights or consideration that you place aside or beneath the case in question. And that is why we must understand that why the constitution gives the journalists the right to hold government accountable to the people. It also gives children the right not to be unnecessarily exposed. Okay, the right to be protected, the right to name, the right to education and all that, they are all enshrined in the child rights act. Okay, so what the court is doing in that instance is to make sure that the child is protected. Because the truth is that if the court allows everyone to come in and therefore everyone to get into the arena of conflict, there are lawyers also who will go and appeal after whatever decision the court has taken to say that the right of the child, the child's privacy, was not taken into consideration during the proceedings. Thank you so much. And that may lead to letting aside whatever decision that the court of essence must have taken. Thank you. So, I mean, we should understand this. Thank you, Mr. Opheli, and thank you for explaining this. At least a layman would understand this. Yeah. Hello. Hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.