These facts are contained in the interim Report presented by the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Justice Suleiman Galadima, (Rtd) CFR, at the 86th Meeting of the National Judicial Council. The Committee distilled the issues from its findings from discussions with Heads of Courts and observations made from the surprise visits of the Members to Courts handling corruption and financial crime cases in some parts of Country. POOR PROSECUTION: On the part of the prosecution, the Committee observed the following:-
- that offenders are charged to Court before proper investigations of the charges are done, and afterwards, expecting the Court to detain such alleged offenders till conclusion of their investigation;
- inadequate prosecuting personnel at the prosecution Agencies;
- that some prosecutors lack the requisite experience to prosecute corruption cases, which invariably leads to poor handling of such cases;
- lack of commitment on the part of some prosecutors and collusion between them and defence counsel to pervert justice either by stalling the trials of cases or achieving pre-determined results;
- that there is no threshold to the number of witnesses the prosecution calls;
- inadequate funding of prosecution Agencies to carry out thorough investigation of the corruption cases with attendant low quality prosecution cases; and
- frequent requests for adjournment by the Prosecutors.
- retirement\transfer of Judges handling such cases. When this happens, such cases which may have gone far are re-assigned to another Judge to start de-novo;
- granting of remand order by a Court without following up to ensure suspects are brought to Court;
- inadequate provision for proper record keeping and shelving of Court files and other relevant documents in some Courts;
- cumbersome process of transmission of records from trial Courts which impedes the early disposal of appeals; and
- difficulties associated with ascertaining addresses for service of process by Bailiffs
- importance of proper training for prosecution in the area of investigation, especially in the area of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015;
- need for prosecuting Agencies to have competent prosecution departments manned by qualified personnel;
- synergy between the various prosecution Agencies to enhance proper prosecution of criminal cases;
- use of professionals, such as accountants, auditors, etc, to investigate high profile and complicated cases;
- need for training and re-training of staff of Court handling criminal cases;
- need to provide Judicial Officers with a Legal\Research Assistant to make their work easier.
- proper funding for the Judiciary and prosecuting Agencies;
- deployment of more Judges to handle designated corruption cases;
- complete overhaul of both physical and technical infrastructures in designated Courts as some of them are small and not well ventilated; and
- need to come up with Practise Directions for corruption cases trial to cure anomalies in the trial of the cases.
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