A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has quashed the indefinite suspension slammed on Dr. Ejike Ferdinand Orji, the Medical Director of the Excell Medical and Specialist Hospital, Lagos, by the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Investigations Panel.
The body, an administrative panel of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), had in a letter dated 28th August, 2023, slammed an indefinite suspension on Dr. Orji from the practice of medical profession in Nigeria.
But, dissatisfied with the decision, Dr. Orji through his counsel, Barr. Ezenwa Ibegbunam approached the court to set aside the suspension through a judicial review.
The Panel was represented at the trial by Barr. Priscilla T. Williams, who claimed that having been convicted of professional misconduct by the Lagos State High Court, in suit NoLD/8963C/2019, a judgment delivered on 20th January, 2023, which the panel relied on, the panel need not hear Dr. Orji again before it passed it’s verdict against him.
After a review of the facts and law placed before the court, Justice Kayode Agunloye overruled the Panel, pointing out that it failed to accord Dr. Orji a fair hearing on the allegations made against him by the Lagos State Government, at the Medical Disciplinary Panel.
Dr. Orji had through his counsel, Barr. Ibegbunam, filed an action seeking for an order of certiorari (Judicial review) against the decision of the Panel, and premised the suit on lack of fair hearing on the part of the Panel and that he had a pending appeal against the judgment of the High Court of Lagos State at the Appel Court, yet, the Panel found him guilty and indefinitely suspended him.
Dr. Orji also protested that the suspension contraved the provisions of Section 16 of the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act 2004, which stipulates that a member found guilty by the Panel shall not be suspended beyond six months.
After Ibegbunam and Williams exchanged their pleadings and adopted their written briefs and arguments, the presiding Justice reviews the facts and laws placed before him and arrived at the decisions.
According to Justice Agunloye, “what the defendants have done was to make an interim suspension against the Claimant (Dr. Orji) and made it dependent on the indeterminate conditions of pending the determination of your matter by the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal, knowing that it would take more than six months for the matter to be determined by the Tribunal”.
He ruled that such an indeterminate suspension is ultra vires the powers of the defendants, stressing that where a statute specifies for a committee or tribunal the manner of carrying out a duty or exercising powers, it must be strictly followed.
Justice Agunloye therefore declared that “the letter written by the defendants dated 28th August, 2023, suspending the claimant/applicant from the practice of the medical profession in Nigeria is unlawful, null, void and of no effect whatsoever in the grounds of lack and or excess of jurisdiction, abuse of power, breach of rules of natural justice, bad faith and ultra vires the powers of the defendants”.
The court also made an order of perpetual injunction prohibiting the defendants or their agents from further acting upon or giving effect to the suspension of the applicant from the practice of medical profession in Nigeria in pursuance of the letter dated 28th August, 2023.
The Council was further prohibited from making any further or other interim order against Dr. Orji or stopping him from the practice of medical profession pending the determination of his case before the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal.
Dr. Orji had dragged the Chairman, Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Investigations Panel and the Panel itself to Court for a Judicial review of the indefinite suspension from engaging in the practice of medical profession, a decision he felt breached provisions of the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Act.
