Eight years after the passage of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, the compliance and implementation has continued to be a hydra-headed problem.
This is according to CLEEN Foundation which blames the main actors including prosecutors, the Courts, the Nigerian Correctional Service, Law Enforcement Agencies, defence lawyers, Investigators, among others.
Its Director of Programme, Salaudeen Hashim said this at a media training supported by the MacArthur Foundation, on reporting, influencing compliance and implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Regime in Nigeria.
The training which had Journalists from both Electronic, Print and Online was themed, “Media Training Towards Influencing The Effective Implementation and Compliance of The Administration of Criminal Justice Regime In Nigeria.”
Hashim in an opening remark, said the training also became vital after monitoring and research carried out by the Foundation, which led to shocking discoveries that principal actors, who are supposed to use and adhere to the procedural laws encapsulated in the ACJA have refused to comply and implement it.
According to him, while others, including judges, have absolutely no idea what the ACJA is all about and thus continue to breach the laws.
Speaking on the aim of the media training, its Programme Manager, Chigozirim Okoro, said the objective of the training was to develop advocacy capacity and capability to mobilise voices to influence political actors and criminal justice stakeholders towards the implementation and Compliance of the Administration of Criminal Justice Regime in Nigeria.
Okoro, said the training was also to enhance the knowledge of the journalists on advocacy capacity and capability to mobilise voices to influence actors and improve the awareness of the media personnel towards value-added collaboration, openness, and flexible and responsive partnership.
According to her, it was also to create agenda-setting ideas and develop the capacity to interrogate ideas and advocate towards an efficient outcome.
Okoro said for the country to move forward with respect to the ACJA, it was vital to tackle challenges discovered during the monitoring and then later begin to hold relevant actors and their agencies accountable through vibrant and sustained media reportage.
She said it is also to stimulate conversation and rejig stakeholders justice sector on accountability gap and to build a base of knowledge and best practices that can be widely used in strengthening coordination of existing and emerging Anti-Corruption Agencies and strengthening their collaboration, coordination and communication as prescribed by the Administrative of Criminal Justice Act 2015.
In her words, the overarching project goal is to contribute to the reduction of corruption, promote judicial transparency in processing corruption cases and enhance accountability among practitioners in the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
According to her, the project is aimed at improving the compliance level to the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act in Nigeria, saying We’ve seen how corrupt cases are handled, how a single judge continues to handle too many cases in a state, going from one court to the next, leading to long adjournments.
Okoro said some judges are not even aware of the innovations of the ACJA, saying they want the media to begin to hold people accountable, people who are not doing their duties by complying with those innovations in the ACJA.
She stressed the importance of ensuring the remaining states domesticate the law, as only thirty-three states had adopted the ACJA.
For her, they are tired of seeing prison congestion, seeing the same abnormalities every day and want to persuade the actors to do the right thing through media reports.
She challenged journalists to study and understand the ACJA, and to look at the innovations so that when they write their reports, they’ll do so with authority stemming from knowledge.”
Okoro said some important innovations in ACJA, which Nigerians should keep close to their chest and armed themselves is to know that ACJA Act prohibits arrest by proxy or arrest instead of parents, siblings, friends or relatives of suspects, prohibition of arrest in civil cases.
She said the ACJA also requires that trials should be on a day-to-day basis, where this is impracticable, the prosecution and the defendant are entitled to a maximum of five adjournments each from arraignment to judgment – with the interval between each adjournment not exceeding 14 days.
Okoro also said: “ACJA admits electronic recording of suspect’s statement, women are no longer prohibited from standing as sureties and quarterly report of arrests to the Attorney-General of the Federation by the Inspector-General of Police and head of every arresting agency.
“The ACJA also has guidelines to prevent abuse in a plea bargain, notification of cause of arrest, monthly report by Police to supervising magistrate, establishment of a Police Central Criminal Records Registry (CCRR), magistrate monthly inspection of police stations and other places of detention within his territorial jurisdiction.”
Human Resources, Legal Officer, Ifeyinwa Akwiwu said the situation of the ACJA after its enactment was not impressive, saying eight years post-enactment, the Act has encountered a slow and difficult process in achieving full implementation.
Akwiwu explained that before the enactment of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) in 2015, the criminal justice system was historically characterised by delays in the dispensation of trials engendered by incessant adjournments, interlocutory applications, disregard for gender mainstreaming, poor case management, corruption, and infringement of human rights amongst other challenges.
She noted that to address the gaps in the system, an integrated and coordinated reform in the administration of criminal Justice was crucial and accordingly, birthed the ACJA. The Act introduced far-reaching innovations, including stipulated periods for conducting investigations, arraignment, and prosecution of offences.
According to her, the principal goal of the project by CLEEN is to contribute to the reduction of corruption, promote judicial transparency in processing corruption cases, and enhance accountability among practitioners in the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
She said the project is aimed at improving the compliance level to the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act in Nigeria, saying this will achieve by evaluating the issues identified and charting a way forward.
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