Administration of Criminal Justice Act should facilitate trials
WE hope the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 (ACJA) has effectively saved our criminal justice system from devious interlocutory injunctions that seek to turn criminal trials to a farce. In recent years, many of those charged with heinous criminal acts against the state had used interlocutory injunctions to run rings around their trials, and successfully made a mockery of the prosecution.
In those instances, smart defence counsel, after propelling the delay of the trial of their clients through a series of interlocutory applications and appeals to higher courts, turn around to accuse the state of engaging in years of persecution, feigning ignorance that they orchestrated the delay.
Now, we have section 306 of ACJA, which provides: “an application for stay of proceedings in respect of a criminal matter before the court shall not be entertained”. We consider this to mean that all the criminal cases pending before the courts, since the end of 2007, when many politically exposed persons were charged for various acts of criminal conduct, would now be seriously prosecuted and determined by the courts. Indeed, Nigerians would be reassured of the effectiveness of our criminal justice system if the cases involving many ex-governors, lawmakers and ministers, are now expeditiously dealt with.
Because of the previous languid trials, many of those who have grievous criminal cases pending against them have taken higher political responsibilities. And when they are confronted with their immorality, they hide behind the provisions of section 36(5) of the 1999 constitution, which provides that “every person who is charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed to be innocent until he is proved guilty”. With political parties and the practitioners completely lacking any moral fibre, the presumption of innocence gets elevated to exculpation from guilt, as those with strong prima facie cases of criminality behave as if they have nothing to be ashamed of.
In furtherance of the rejuvenated criminal prosecution process, it is hoped that the perpetual injunction granted to ex-Governor Peter Odili by a court, with respect to his prosecution for his actions while the governor of Rivers State would now receive a revisit. Also, the case of the former Governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, which came up recently, after a seven-year hiatus, is another case in point. Furthermore, their colleagues, who served in Sokoto, Enugu, Bauchi, Abia, Imo, Edo, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Zamfara, Ekiti, Borno, Katsina, Niger and many other states, who have pending cases in court, need to have them dealt with.
We hope that section 396 of the ACJA would also help mitigate this national embarrassment that assailed our criminal trial procedure. Section 396(3) provides: “upon arraignment the trial of defendant shall proceed from day-to-day until the conclusion of the trial”. Sub-section 4, however provides: “where day-to-day trial is impracticable after arraignment, no party shall be entitled to more than five adjournments from arraignment to final judgment: provided always that the interval between each adjournment shall not exceed fourteen working days”. Where the trial is not concluded, the intervals will be reduced to seven days, and the courts may award reasonable costs “in order to discourage frivolous adjournments”.
The act clearly portends good for our criminal justice procedure, and we urge the courts, the prosecution and the defendants and their counsel to make effective use of it. The trial of the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olisah Metuh, is a case in point. If it were under the previous Criminal Procedure Act, the defendant who is already facing trial would have first engaged in the subterfuge of interlocutory applications.
This is the way all other such criminal cases should go, henceforth.