The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN); Justice Helen Ogunwumiju of the Supreme Court and other stakeholders have called for an efficient criminal justice sector during the assessment of 10 years of implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), in Abuja.
This is coming as a human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has stated that the Nigerian criminal justice system disproportionately targets the poor.
The ACJA, signed into law in 2015, has since been adopted by the 36 states of the federation as part of reforms aimed at improving justice delivery in the country.
Appraising the law in the last 10 years, the stakeholders called for improved funding for magistracy and prosecuting agencies.
The stakeholders included Fagbemi (SAN); Justice Ogunwumiju; Justice Olubunmi Oyewole of the Court of Appeal; Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho; former Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Justice Ishaq Bello; Director, Legal, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Sylvanus Tahir (SAN); the Founding Director and current National Coordinator, Legal Defence and Assistance Project, Chinonye Edmund Obiagwu (SAN); and Associate Professor, Lilian Uche, from the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), spoke at an event in Abuja marking the 10th anniversary of ACJA.
The event was organised by the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), under the leadership of Professor Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN).
In his remarks, the AGF, who was represented by the Director, Administration of Criminal Justice Reform, Federal Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Leticia Ayoola-Daniels, pointed out that the future of criminal justice reform must be built on effective implementation of the relevant laws and not mere intentions.
He listed the refurbishment of three courtrooms in the Kirikiri Correctional Centre, Lagos, as part of reforms aimed at improving the justice sector.
“It is important that we promote non-custodial measures in sentencing. We need to leverage technology for speed, transparency and efficiency as this will help to decongest courts’ dockets,” the AGF added.
In her speech, Justice Ogunwumiju stated that if the ACJA must achieve its full objective, then much attention should be paid to the Magistracy, which, according to her, does the bulk of the job in respect of criminal justice.
The apex court justice pointed out that most of the shortcomings the ACJA is set out to cure are mainly found at the magistracy level, adding that reforms should aim at bringing them in because of the important role they play in justice delivery.
“They are the ones that remand at the flimsiest reason; they need to be trained on the implications of some of the orders they make,” she stated.
In a lecture titled: ‘Decade of the ACJA; Charting the Course of Criminal Justice Reforms in Nigeria,’ Falana noted that the ACJA is not just a procedural reform but an instrument for social justice.
He stressed that every society is judged not by how it treats the powerful but by how it treats the poor, the weak and the vulnerable.
“A silent but undeniable truth is that the Nigerian criminal justice system disproportionately targets the poor. The offences that fill Nigerian prisons are overwhelmingly poverty-related, such as petty theft, street trading offences, minor property crimes and failure to pay fines.
“In contrast, economic crimes involving large-scale financial fraud or public corruption rarely result in meaningful conviction or accountability. This disparity reveals a class bias in criminal justice enforcement. Justice becomes a privilege influenced by resources and connections instead of a guaranteed constitutional right”, the rights activists told the gathering.
For the ACJA to enhance socio-economic justice, Falana suggested that access to justice must be treated as a legally enforceable right supported by public funding for legal aid.
President of the CSLS, Prof. A. Akinseye-George, called for an end to the abuse of the ACJA.
Akinseye-George further called for due recognition and funding of the Magistrate Court, which, according to him, handles about 70 per cent of criminal cases.
He also called on the National Assembly to fast-track the process of amending the ACJA Bill pending before the Senate.
Alex Enumah
