The CLEEN Foundation recently conducted a study to unravel how the implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Acts/ Law is being carried out in some states of the federation. The research carried out in Edo, Delta, Bauchi, Sokoto, Katsina, Jigawa, Kwara and Cross River states was to help strengthen and improve actors’ compliance to the provisions of the ACJL in their domains.
This was revealed during the Policy Brief Presentation on the Compliance Levels of Stakeholders on the Implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Regime /Gender Accountability and Transparency in the Implementation of ACJA 2015 on December 12, 2024.
“The administration of Criminal Justice Acts and Law across states and the contemporary law of the Police Act, came out of the desire for three specific reasons. First transparency; second is accountability and the third one is the respect for the rule of law and rights of citizens”, says Dr Salaudeen Hashim, Programme Director, CLEEN Foundation.
“One of the things we have noticed is that both state actors and of course citizens don’t find completely satisfactory is the kind of services they have garnered from the stakeholders and basically we noticed very well there are some level of resentment from citizens across these eight states, although in some areas they have found some level of progression but not entirely satisfactory,” he states.
CLEEN notes that compliance with the ACJA/L by law enforcement agents, especially Nigerian Police and other policing actors are compliant with the ACJA/L particularly regarding arrest procedures, although they may not be fully compliant on the respect for detainee rights.
The issue of outdated evidence collection and preservation system were also highlighted as an area of concern by stakeholders especially Correctional Service personnel and court officials as they see it as an important challenge which points to the need for substantial public investment in modernised and efficient evidence gathering tools and crime processing techniques.
Responses from stakeholders also raises worrying concern about the independence of prosecutorial office as this has caused serious constraints on judges/magistrates and Independent Corrupt Practices and related other offences Commission during service delivery.
Gender accountability is a process that ensures that women and men have equal access to opportunities, rewards and society’s valued resources. However certain human-made socio-cultural factors constrain the process making it an uphill task in Nigeria justice system. The ACJA/L includes gender-responsive provisions such as the right of a woman to stand as surety; protection from arrest in lieu, and the right to be searched by an officer of the same gender.
The study shows that women and individuals from marginalised areas often face unique challenges and biases within the criminal justice process. Some of these include limited support for gender-based violence, GBV among law enforcement agencies; women are discouraged from reporting abuse due to societal stigma, cultural pressures or fear of retaliation. States like Katsina currently has not fully implemented the Child Protection Law and females do not stand surety.
Dr Hashim opines that “one of the challenges faced in the course of the study borders on the disposition of some of the state actors to offer you data because every agency will be protective and very territorial and attempt not to give the true state of how issues are reflected but through constant and proactive engagement we are able to get some of the information. The second issue is that we are not likely to get the exact information from what we gathered so what we have is just like a bracket of happenings within that space”.
“We need some level of genderless in the operationalisation of ACJL. Third is that we want to see personnel within the criminal justice have adequate knowledge around the existence and provisions. Those two elements are missing and we think the personnel should have knowledge to able to function and respond adequately”.
Recommendations by the foundation are to increase inter-agency coordination and increase within the value chain of criminal justice. Also need for digitalization of court processes to ensure adequate tracking of completed cases, court trails and proceedings; fast tracking the passage of Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill and signing it into law for implementation; need for separate male and female facilities.
More public awareness and campaigns should focus on criminal justice process and how citizens can hold the system accountable.
In conclusion Dr Hashim states, “We are making progress but again the progress is not quick enough and that for me is actually a concern because if you have a law that has actually stipulated these desires, there are tendencies that operationalise of the laws will have issues so we selected those eight states because of the risk ranking that we did and realised that these eight states are at risk that was why the intervention focused more there”.
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