Iyan-Tama’s case “not listed”

Today I arrived for Iyan-Tama’s rescheduled appeal (readers will remember that it had been scheduled for Thursday but the chief justice suddenly had to travel–see two posts back) at 9:51am. The appeal was scheduled for 9:30am, so I was afraid I was late. I waited until 10:43am in the back of the court room with a few other journalists (lawyers at the front), for the chief justice to arrive.

He said that the case was “not listed.”

This is the third appeal case I’ve been to that has been delayed. The first one was dismissed because the court was not satisfied with the way the appeal was prepared. The second one was postponed because the chief justice travelled, and now this third one was “not listed.”  I do not have a lot of experience in courts of law, but it makes me wonder if all cases have this problem or if it is just Iyan-Tama’s….

For more background on Iyan-Tama’s case see our report on the censorship crisis in Kano.