JOINT APPLICATION IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS: A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Fundamental Rights have been held to be sacrosanct, as they go to the very root of our humanity, because it is the respect for the aggregate of these rights that would make for the enjoyment of our freedoms under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria1. However, certain bottlenecks militate against the smooth enforcement of these fundamental rights. This work found out that cardinal among these bottlenecks, is the concept that the enforcement of these rights must be individualistic, in that where there exists a perceived breach against a group of persons, the enforcement of their fundamental rights can only be achieved by instituting personal actions in favour of each applicant against the offending authority or person(s), and not by a joint action. It is the thrust of this work to examine the rationale behind that concept of individual enforcement against international best practices and recent authorities in this regard. It is the findings of this work that maintaining a joint action in Fundamental rights proceedings is in keeping with the spirit and intendment of the Fundamental Rights Enforcement Procedure. A doctrinal method of research was adopted in this study. It is the recommendation of this work that both the maintenance of individual and joint actions in fundamental rights enforcement can very well go unhindered under the law.