Oladimeji Ramon
Stakeholders in the justice sector have called for better
enforcement of the provisions of the Administration of Criminal
Justice Law in Lagos State. They equally advocated further
amendments to the law in order to bring it abreast of the changing
times.
They hold the unanimous view that Lagos must not rest on its
oars in law reforms lest it loses its pacesetting position to other
states.
These were the prevailing views by speakers last week at a
one-day criminal justice workshop organised by the Lagos State
Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the European Union,
British Council and a non-governmental organisation, Rule of Law
and Anti-Corruption.
The workshop, with the theme, “Appraisal of Current Criminal
Justice Regime in Lagos State,” held at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja.
It had an external prosecutor for the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, Mr Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), as the lead speaker.
The session, chaired by Justice Hakeem Oshodi of the Lagos State
High Court, had Mr Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), Mr Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, Dr
Akeem Bello of the Law Faculty, University of Lagos; Mr Joseph
Otteh of Access to Justice; and the Director of Public
Prosecutions, Lagos State, Ms Titilayo Shitta-Bey, as
panelists.
In attendance were the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice
Opeyemi Oke; the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for
Justice, Mr Adeniji Kazeem (SAN); and the Solicitor-General, Lagos
State, Mrs Funlola Odunlami.
In his paper, Jacobs said Lagos State must be duly credited for
revolutionalising the criminal justice system in Nigeria with the
passage of the ACJL in 2007. He noted that the initiative had since
inspired no fewer than 27 states in the country to pass their
versions of the law. Indeed, he noted that the Administration of
Criminal Justice Act passed in 2015 by the Federal Government drew
inspiration from the Lagos ACJL, with 70 per cent of its content
borrowed from the ACJL.
The prosecutor, however, observed that many of the states which
followed the Lagos example to pass the ACJL had gone on to improve
on the law. He said Lagos State would do well to borrow some of the
improvements introduced by the other states.
An example of such improvements, according to Jacobs, was the
Ogun State ACJL provision, which prohibits the arrest of a person
over civil wrong by law enforcement agencies.
He said Lagos needed to block the lacuna in its ACJL, which the
police and the EFCC were taking advantage of to take over what
should ordinarily be jobs of lawyers.
The prosecutor added that like Ogun State, Lagos should also
upgrade its ACJL to include a clear provision prohibiting the
practice of parading suspects by law enforcement agencies.
Where a suspect paraded before the press is eventually found
innocent by the court, Jacobs said the law should provide that the
police must apologise and pay damages.
“Why should the police be parading suspects when the presumption
of innocence is there? In the event that the person is eventually
freed by the court, what will be his remedy?” Jacobs queried.
He added that the ACJL ought to mandate law enforcement agents
to keep records of arrests.
“When a person is arrested, there must be a record of arrest. We
must take his fingerprint, his photograph and other means of
identification,” Jacobs said.
He also called for the strict enforcement of the existing
provision mandating a chief magistrate to visit all detention
centres in his jurisdiction once a month.
“The purpose is to avoid unnecessary detention and prevent abuse
of the power of the executive, and I think the judiciary should be
alive to that obligation,” he added.
Furthermore, Jacobs advocated the establishment of a criminal
record registry by Lagos State.
“We don’t have a registry where we can check people who have
been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced,” he said, stressing
that such registry should not be under the supervision of the
police.
“Lagos should depart from this bandwagon of having a central
criminal record registry under the control of the Nigeria Police
Force,” he said.
He equally advocated the enforcement of the provisions of the
law that the statement writing process by suspects should be
recorded electronically.
The prosecutor lamented that failure of investigating agencies
to comply was being used as an excuse by many suspects to claim
that they made the statements under duress and asking the court not
to admit such in evidence against them.
He said the situation had been resulting in long months of
trial-within-trial to prove the voluntariness of the statements,
while the main trial would be put on hold.
Jacobs advocated that frontloading of proof of evidence in
criminal trial should not be limited to only the prosecution.
“The defence should also frontload,” he said.
He also called for a review of the provision that permits a
defendant, who is testifying in his own defence, to do so without
entering the witness box by tendering a written statement.
He said the provision should be changed because with that
method, such defendants were not open to being cross-examined by
the prosecution.
In her own paper, the Lagos DPP, Shitta-Bey, described the ACJL
as a largely complete law which had been grossly
under-utilised.
She blamed the poor enforcement and compliance on the negative
attitude of justice sector players to the law.
She said, “In 2017, the office of the DPP filed 697 information
in the high court; at the end of the year, we had 59 cases
determined. In 2018, 1,350 information were filed; at the end of
the year, 104 cases came to conclusion. In 2019 so far, we have
filed 359 and so far, 72 have been concluded and 39 among the 72
cases were struck out.
“Now, just looking at that we can see the wide gap between the
number of cases filed and the number of cases that we got
concluded. Why are we still here despite the far-reaching
provisions of the law? The problems have been the same pre the
enactment of the ACJL and now that we have the ACJL,” Shitta-Bey
said.
As part of solutions to prison congestion, Shitta-Bey pointed
attention to the part of the ACJL which gives the magistrates the
discretion not to remand every suspect brought before them.
She said, “There is Section 264, which I think is a powerful
tool for the magistrates to use when we are talking about problems
associated with remand. The issue is, remand should not be a
routine order once you are confronted with somebody arrested for an
indictable offence. An indictable offence is at best which attracts
two years in prison or a fine of N500,000. So, if you are going to
routinely remand people presented for indictable offence, then it
is a problem because under Section 264 you have a discretion not to
remand.”
Pinheiro, who was represented by a junior in his chamber, Mr
Tokunbo, advocated that like election cases, criminal cases should
also be time-bound.
He also called for a reduction in the burden of proof placed on
both the defence and the prosecution in proving their cases.
In his own contribution, Bello advocated more use of plea
bargain, noting that it was advantageous to both the prosecution
and the defence.
While it saves the prosecution and the court time, the defendant
who enters into plea bargain gets a lighter punishment, Bello
noted.
In his contribution, Otteh sought better enforcement of Section
264 of the ACJL, which gives magistrates the power to supervise the
length of remand detention by law enforcement agencies.
He said, “What we see is that a majority of magistrates in Lagos
State are not convinced that they should release remanded suspects
who have exhausted the period allowed for remand detention in Lagos
State.
“What this means is that even though the ACJL targets the reform
of the abuses inherent in the remand system, we are not where we
should be.”
Otteh supported the proposed inclusion of Section 10(3) in the
ACJL, targeted at protecting suspects from torture and other
inhumane treatments by law enforcement agents.
He, however, said for the provision to be effective, it must be
backed with close monitoring of law enforcement agents.
“Let us advocate a monitoring system similar to that established
under the ACJ Act 2015,” he said.
In his own paper, Adegboruwa also canvassed for the
implementation of Section 9(3) of the ACJL requiring a police
officer to record confessional statement on video or in the
presence of a legal practitioner.
“If well implemented, it would save the court the time for
trial-within-trial and assist in the speedy dispensation of
criminal justice,” he said.
He urged Lagos State to make it a law that law enforcement
agencies should not arrest a suspect until after the completion of
investigation.
“There is a need to move away from crude arrest, withholding
charge and remands. The prosecutorial agency must up their game, do
proper investigation before arrest. This would speed up the
process, protect the fundamental rights of citizens and promote
efficiency in the criminal administration system,” Adegboruwa
said.
He called for an amendment to Section 17(1) of the ACJL to
mandate the law enforcement agencies to grant bail to every suspect
where they cannot charge him to court within 72 hours of
arrest.
He said, “The police and other sister agencies should grant bail
to every citizen, where it is impracticable to charge the suspect
before a court of competent jurisdiction.
“It is reiterated that bail ought not to be dispensed as a
punitive measure against a suspect, whose guilt has not been
proven.”
Adegboruwa called for the removal of Section 116(2) of the ACJL,
which empowers a judge to require the deposit of money before bail
is approved.
“With due respect, this is an attack on the poor. It should be
limited to the execution of a bail bond and not money, as this
might bring hardship on the poor,” the human rights lawyer
said.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Lagos Attorney General,
Kazeem, said as the economic hub of Africa, there was a need to
constantly upgrade Lagos State laws to bring them abreast of
changing times.
“With a dynamic city such as Lagos, it is no surprise that our
challenges are peculiar and therefore require a shift in mindset
and a deliberate attempt to achieve and implement an all-round
reform,” he said.
He said the workshop was “an opportunity to reflect on the
innovative reforms introduced so far under the exemplary leadership
of His Excellency, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, whose passion for
achieving a practical, effective and contemporary justice system
remains glaring.”
In her goodwill message, the Chief Judge, Justice Oke, said an
effective criminal justice system was a sine qua non for economic
growth.
“A sound criminal justice guarantees the safety and well-being
of the good people of Lagos State through the eradication of
criminal activities,” she said.
She said Lagos State aimed to build “a citizen-centric criminal
justice system for the purpose of ensuring efficient and effective
justice delivery.”
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Udoma: Nigeria to Achieve 7% GDP growth by
2020
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo
Udoma has expressed hope that the country can achieve 7% GDP growth
target.
Senator Udoma stated this on Tuesday in Abuja during an
interactive session with the press while giving an overview of the
achievements of the Ministry since the inception of this
administration in 2015.
Udoma said, ‘’The President has indicated that he intends to
stay focused on the implementation of the ERGP so as to ensure that
we can achieve the 3.0 % growth target for this year. It is my hope
that the seeds we are currently sowing will propel us to achieve
our 7% GDP growth target in the course of Mr. Presidents’ second
term”.
On the latest GDP numbers just released by the National Bureau
of Statistics on Tuesday, the Minister said that the performance in
the first quarter of 2019 is the strongest first quarter growth
since 2015, as well as stating that starting the year with a GDP
growth of 2.01% is encouraging because the first quarter of the
year often records the slowest growth in GDP.
He also said that the focus of the NEXT LEVEL agenda of
President Muhammadu Buhari will be on job creation for the teeming
youths of Nigeria.
He highlighted a number of measures the Ministry has put in
place to stop the economic decline that the country faced during
the early days of the Buhari administration.
These Include, the introduction of an expansionary budget in the
2016 fiscal year christened the Budget of Change, development of
the ERGP, implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the
Efficiency Unit within the Ministry of Finance and the Presidential
Initiative on Continuous Audit.
Other initiatives include the Whistle Blowing Policy, the
Integrated Payroll Personnel System (IPPIS) and the Investors’ and
Exporters Foreign Exchange window by the Central Bank of
Nigeria.
According to the Minister an important strategy the Ministry
embarked on in order to exit recession was to seek to reflate the
economy, this according to him was why they increased the capital
budget and budgetary allocations to capital expenditure- from 16.1%
in 2015 to 30.2% in 2016, 31. 7 % in 2017, 31.5% in 2018 and 26% in
2019- with priority given to the key execution priorities of the
ERGP.
He added that the Ministry of Finance was able to release, for
capital spending, the sum of 1.2 trillion under the 2016 Budget,
the sum of N1.58 trillion under the 2017 budget, and as at 8th May,
2019, the sum of NI.55 trillion has been released under the 2018
Budget.
He stated that the implementation of the ERGP resulted in the
economy exiting recession in the second quarter of 2017 and
returning subsequently to the path of growth with most economic
indices showing a positive momentum.
Signed
Victoria Agba-Attah
Director (Information)
Tuesday, May 21, 2019