JUDGE SACKS COURT REGISTRAR FOR WEARING HIJAB TO WORK Posted on FACEBOOK on March 10, 2014. A High Court registrar with the Ijebu Igbo High Court in Ogun State, Mrs Hawwal Zeenat Iyabode, may have been relieved of her job by a Judge in the court, Adetokunbo Olusola Jibodu for allegedly wearing Hijab (veil) to work. Findings showed that Mrs Hawwal, who has put in over 14 years in the service of the Ogun state government was sent away from her office after she was transferred from Registry to the open court which is under the supervision of Justice Jibodu It was learnt that before her ordeal, the registrar had earlier served in the open court under another Judge with her Islamic mode of dressing before Justice Jibodu was transferred to the court, without any complaint by her head. Hawwal, who spoke with newsmen in Abeokuta, explained that her ordeal started around April 2013 when the judge invited her to his office and ordered her to remove her Hijab or vacate her position. She said that since the incident, she had been denied her position in the court which made it impossible for her to attend the staff screening exercise held late last year. Already, her counsel, Adebayo Shittu, had petitioned the state Chief Judge, Tokunbo Olopade, explaining that the sacking of his client was unconstitutional, unjustifiable, illegal, and unreasonable. The letter with the title, “Petition against continuous violation of fundamental and/or constitutional right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion in the temple of Justice’ was copied the state Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and the state judicial service commission. He relied on section 38 of 1999 constitution which, according to it, guarantee the right to the use of Islamic face veil and Hijab by female Muslims in Nigeria and cited the interpretation of the section by the Court of Appeal in the case of The provost, Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin Vs Bashirat Saliu in suit number CA/IL/49/2009 “where the Court of Appeal ruled that the use of veil by female Muslims qualifies as a fundamental right under section 38 of the constitution”. The counsel appealed to the Chief Judge of Ogun State to use her good offices to prevail on officials to stop persecuting, harassing and molesting Hawwal “in whatever form for the sole reason that she has chosen to exercising her Fundamental Right of thought, conscience and religion”.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:30:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015