The Chief Justice
of Nigeria, Justice Mariam Mukhtar, has said security agencies in the country
take suspects to court before looking for evidence to prosecute them.
Justice Mukhtar
identified the practice as one of the reasons for undue delays in the criminal
justice administration system in the country.
The CJN spoke at a
special session organised by the Supreme Court to mark the commencement of the
2013/2014 Legal Year, as well as the inauguration of 17 new Senior Advocates of
Nigeria in Abuja on Monday.
She frowned at the
“unwholesome practice of some security agents involved in the criminal justice
administration system,” particularly the arraignment of suspects without first
gathering evidence for prosecution.
“It is common
knowledge that our security agencies usually rush to the courts with suspects,
before looking for evidence to prosecute them.
“The persistent use
of the ‘Holden Charge’ by these agencies to detain awaiting trial suspects, is
a major contributor to the high number of cases pending in our courts,” she
said.
The CJN advised the
security agencies to emulate the practice in other parts of the world, where
adequate evidences were obtained before suspects were arrested and charged to
court.
Admonishing the
security agencies to adopt a more effective approach, she said, “This procedure
is a far cry from what obtains in other democracies, where discrete
surveillance is placed on crime suspects who are painstakingly stalked by
security agents, until such a time when enough evidence would have been
obtained for their arrest, arraignment and prosecution.
“But in Nigeria,
suspects are promptly arrested and often times arraigned in court, even when no
evidence for prosecution has been gathered.
“The backlash from
such failure of proper investigation by our security agencies is the resultant
hike in the number of cases pending in the courts.”
Justice Mukhtar
warned that “an extreme consequence of these glaring lapses may lie in the loss
of confidence in our domestic justice administration system which rubbishes our
often brandished favourable investment climate and translate to a huge
disincentive to potential foreign investors in Nigeria.”
She restated her
call for an overhaul of the country’s criminal laws, which she described as
“archaic and culturally irrelevant.”
The CJN further
expressed concerns at the slow pace of administration of justice in the
country.
“To exhaust
complete remedy in a case, that is from trial court to Supreme Court,
could take up to 20 years with the original litigants dead and substituted and
in some cases the substitutes also dead and substituted,” she said.
She added that the
process of interlocutory appeals aggravates the situation to the extent that by
the time the Supreme Court decides that they be continued in trial court, most
of the witnesses might have died or alive but senile, with documents no longer
traceable.
Justice Mukhtar
also spoke on the challenges militating against her resolve to restore the
fading glory of this country’s judiciary.
She stressed that,
for her to achieve the objective, “certain indices have to be guaranteed, for
instance government must at all times ensure total compliance with the rule of
law as well as adherence to the principle of separation of powers.”
Speaking of the
need for compliance with the principle of separation of powers, the CJN noted
that the National Judicial Council had the exclusive powers to deal with
policies relating to policy and administration in the judiciary.
Noting that, under
a democratic dispensation, the three arms of government must keep faith with
the doctrine of separation of powers as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, she
stressed that “the Judiciary must continue to defend its independence so that
it should not merely be apparent but must be seen to be real.”
“By virtue of
Section 153 of the Constitution, the National Judicial Council is the apex body
for the nation’s Judiciary.
“By paragraph
21(1), part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, the Council has
the power to deal with matters relating to broad issues of policy and
administration of the Judiciary,” she added.
Also speaking at
the event, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Okey Wali, SAN,
canvassed the inclusion of NBA’s representatives in the NJC in disciplinary
proceedings against judges.
Wali also spoke of
heightened efforts by the NBA to address issues of indiscipline among legal
practitioners.
He said seven
lawyers were expelled from the bar in the past legal year after being indicted
for various acts of misconduct, while two others were suspended.
The NBA President
also echoed the CJN’s concerns over the “poor funding” of the judiciary.
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