The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has been prohibited from fining broadcast stations in the nation any further in a ruling by the Federal High Court of Abuja on Wednesday.
Justice James Omotosho’s ruling nullified the N500,000 fines the NBC levied against 45 broadcast stations on March 1, 2019.
Justice Omotosho averred that because the NBC was not a court of law, it lacked the authority to penalize allegedly negligent broadcast stations with sanctions.
According to the judge, Section 6 of the Constitution, which gave courts the authority to decide cases, conflicts with the NBC Code, which the commission uses to issue sanctions.
He said the court would not sit idle and watch a body imposing fine arbitrarily without recourse to the law, adding that the commission did not comply with the law when it sat as a complainant and at the same time, a court and a judge on its own case.
The judgment was on a suit marked:FHC/ABJ/CS/1386/2021 filed by a group, the Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda.
