COSON lawyer
In reaction to a public statement issued by the Nigerian Copyright Commission on December 10, 2021 with reference to the operations of Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), lawyers to COSON have decided to bring contempt charges against the Director-General of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), Mr. John Asein and his Director, Public Affairs, Mr. Vincent Oyefeso.
We wish to bring to the notice of the general public that COSON has filed a Notice of Appeal in the interlocutory decision in Suit No: FHC/L/CS/425/2020 and that the NCC has been served with the notice by lawyers to COSON. What the NCC is trying to do is to use back-door means to truncate the constitutional rights of COSON to pursue its appeal according to law.
We state firmly that the substantive suit has not been tried, struck out, determined nor dismissed. The prayers of COSON remain live issues before the Court and there is no way that COSON can be said to be operating unlawfully without the issues being determined. The willful misinterpretation of the effect of the decision of the court is regrettable.
We re-state that Lawyers to COSON have also served the NCC with a letter drawing the attention of the commission to the well-established doctrine of “Lis Pendes” forbidding anyone from taking any action which will overreach a court or impose a fait accomplice or a situation of helplessness on a Court.
The general public should be left with no doubt that Nigeria remains a democratic society and that COSON, its members and lawyers, as full citizens of Nigeria, are determined and fully ready to pursue to its conclusion this matter and all the injustice unleashed on them by a lawless NCC and its minions.
