By Centre for Legal Support and Inmate Rehabilitation (CELSIR)
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The criminal justice system is traditionally set in motion with the arrest, trial, conviction and punishment of social defiant. At each stage of the process, various stakeholders like the Police, Courts and Correctional Centres are ideally assigned roles to achieve the goal of redress and reformation. During the arrest and trial stage, the presumption of innocence is always flagged as a reason to protect the fundamental rights of the defendant, but the clamour for rights of detainees usually end there.
In Nigeria, like many African countries, the least censured infraction of rights is the degrading treatments persons in detention face. The popular belief is that a detainee is stripped off all forms of rights upon conviction. We must ask the question whether a convict can still claim any scintilla of rights especially in a nation like Nigeria, where its criminal justice system is characterized with blatantly vicious, cruel, and inhumane treatments.
The basic tenets of civil liberties is that rights exist at the very core of human existence, and must be accorded to all persons irrespective of their race, status, colour, gender, inter alia. International human rights documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 provide standards based on the non-defeasible humanness of the object of the challenged treatment. According to Deborah Labelle, ‘Despite the alleged “sins” of the prisoner, human rights treaties maintain the recognition of the individual as a human being entitled to basic dignity and rights accorded to all individuals based solely on their humanity.’
Unfortunately, criminal justice stakeholders and the average member of the Nigerian community think less of humanity for any person under lawful incarceration. Convicts are considered diminished and should have no say on any claim for rights. But they are no less of persons whose rights are only subject to expressly curtailed judicial limitations allowable by law. In the Nigeria, the Constitution guarantees certain fundamental liberties, and a judicial suspension of a particular right does not nullify others. For example, a prisoner does not ceases to enjoy the right to dignity of human person even if sentenced to term of years. This position accord with global best policies as contained in the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisons (Mandela Rules) 2016 and the Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa (1996). Rule 1, of the Mandela Rules provides that;
All prisoners shall be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings. No prisoner shall be subjected to, and all prisoners shall be protected from, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, for which no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification. The safety and security of prisoners, staff, service providers and visitors shall be ensured at all times.
In Nigeria, the notorious fact of excessive prison overcrowding is the antecedent to extreme cruelty in prisons. Inmates are pressed to live under the worth conditions of life, leading to re-counted epidemic of diseases and avoidable mortalities. Interestingly the Court of Appeal in Peter Nemi v Attorney General of Lagos State and Ors [1996] 6 NWLR. Pt 452 at P. 42, stated that prisoners still have their rights intact, except those deprived by law. It was further reiterated that even a condemned criminal awaiting execution still maintains his rights until properly executed by the due process of law.
The horrific condition of prisons and the treatment of prisoners in Nigeria, is indicative of the need to urgently revisit extant justice punitive ideologies, and drift towards a humane and respectful correctional regime. The enforcement of convict’s rights is the least spoken and acted upon even by criminal justice stakeholders. What is settled from facts above is that a convict can maintain actions against prison officials and even the state for the enforcement of his fundamental rights not suspended by judicial verdicts.
The principles that underpins the justice system is to breed more social saints than defiant, through strategic reformative schemes which can largely be achieved by a benevolent justice system. It is recommended that quick efforts be made to give life to the provisions of the Constitution, the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, the Nigerian Prison Standing Orders, 2011 and other related law that provides for the enforcement of prisoners’ rights. Much work needs to be done!
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Authored by Ben Ijeoma Adigwe Esq., ACiarb (UK), LL.M, Dip. in Artificial Intelligence, Director at the Delta State Ministry of Justice, Asaba, Nigeria.
