Eight Years of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015: What has Changed?

The ACJA was enacted in May 2015, with a view to reforming the delivery of criminal justice in Nigeria. Section 1(1) of the Act states the objectives of the Act as follows: “The purpose of this Act is to ensure that the system of administration of criminal justice in Nigeria promotes efficient management of criminal justice institutions, speedy dispensation of justice, protection of society from crime, and protection of the rights and interests of the suspect, the defendant, and the victim.”

This review of the first eight years of the ACJA will be guided by the objectives stated above.

The pertinent questions, therefore, are:

(1) How far has the ACJA promoted efficiency in the management of criminal justice institutions?

(2) To what extent has the Act promoted the speedy dispensation of criminal justice?

(3) In what ways has the ACJA contributed to the protection of society from crime?

(4) How has the ACJA promoted the rights and interests of suspects and defendants?

(5) How has the ACJA promoted the rights and interests of victims?

Efficiency in the Management of criminal justice institutions (CJIs): criminal justice institutions include law enforcement agencies such as the Nigeria Police Force and Anti-corruption Agencies (ACAs) such as the EFCC, ICPC, NDLEA, NAPTIP, etc. Other CJIs include the ministries of justice at the federal and state levels; the courts exercising jurisdiction over criminal matters and providing administrative support for the courts; the Correctional Service; and the non-custodial systems. How has the implementation of the ACJA or ACJL in the various states boosted the efficiency of these institutions?

Efficiency means economically applying available resources to accomplish statutory goals as well as to improve public safety. Measuring efficiency requires, inter alia, collecting, studying, and comparing statistics or data over a period of time. The ACJA specifically mandates the collection of statistics or data by the agencies of criminal justice and the dissemination of such data. For example, Section 15(1) provides that: Where a suspect is arrested, whether with or without a warrant, and taken to a police station or any other agency effecting the arrest, the police officer making the arrest or the officer in charge shall cause to be taken immediately, in the prescribed form, the following record of the suspect arrested:

(a) the alleged offense;

(b) the date and circumstances of his arrest;

(c) his full name, occupation, and residential address; and

(d) for the purpose of identification:

(i) his height;

(ii) his photograph;

(iii) his full fingerprint impressions; or

(iv) such other means of his identification.

Then Section 16(1) provides for the establishment at the Nigeria Police Force of a Central Criminal Records Registry (CCRR). For the purposes of subsection 1, there shall be established at every state police command a Criminal Records Registry, which shall keep and transmit all such records to the Central Criminal Records Registry. The State or FCT Police Command shall ensure that the decisions of the court in all criminal trials are transmitted to the Central Criminal Records Registry within 30 days of the judgment.

Using only this mandatory requirement on the collection and dissemination of basic data on arrests, trials, and decisions, amongst several other yardsticks, how efficient can we say the Nigerian Police and other law enforcement agencies have been in the last eight years of the ACJA? Is this data being collected? If yes, is it publicly accessible? Where a court is about to impose a sentence on a defendant, is it possible for the court to be guided by the data collected in the Central Criminal Records Registry? There is a common saying that ‘every offender in Nigeria is a first-time offender’. A criminal justice system that has no credible and reliable records of offenders and their antecedents cannot be said to be efficient.

Remittance of Quarterly Report by the Inspector General of the Police to the Attorney-General

Under Section 26 of the ACJA, it is provided that:

(1) The Inspector-General of Police and the head of every agency authorized by law to make arrests shall remit quarterly to the Attorney-General of the Federation a record of all arrests made with or without warrant in relation to federal offenses within Nigeria.
(2) The Commissioner of Police in a State and head of every agency authorized by law to make arrests within a State shall remit quarterly to the Attorney-General of that State a record of all arrests made with or without warrant in relation to state offenses or arrests within the State.
(3) The report shall contain the full particulars of arrested suspects as prescribed by Section 15 of this Act.
(4) A register of arrests containing the particulars prescribed in Section 15 of this Act shall be kept in the prescribed form at every police station or agency authorized by law to make arrests, and every arrest, whether made with or without warrant, within the local limits of the police station or agency, or within the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, shall be entered accordingly by the officer in charge of the police station or official in charge of the agency as soon as the arrested suspect is brought to the station or agency.
(5) The Attorney-General of the Federation shall establish an electronic and manual database of all records of arrests at the federal and state levels.

In the eight years that the ACJA has been in operation, are we in a position to say that we now have a Central Criminal Records Registry? Or an electronic and manual database of all records of arrests at the federal and state levels? If not, why not? We certainly cannot claim to have an efficient system of criminal justice administration in the absence of basic records of persons processed through the system. It seems to me that the beautiful provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act have not translated to any significant improvement in record keeping, management, or dissemination by the agencies of criminal justice. For that reason, our criminal justice system scores very poorly; it may be 2 over 10 in the aspect of record-keeping as an aspect of efficient management of criminal justice institutions and coordination. The Nigerian Bar Association should invite the Inspectors General of Police and Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, who served as Attorney-General of the Federation for eight years, to show us a functional database of all records of arrests in the country. I am bold enough to say that this record does not exist anywhere. I will be happy to be proved wrong. The NBA must demand compliance with these and other basic provisions of the ACJA.

The Role of the Administration of Criminal Justice Monitoring Committee (ACJMC)

Under section 33 of the ACJA it is provided that:

1) An officer in charge of a police station or an official in charge of an agency authorized to make arrest shall, on the last working day of every month, report to the nearest magistrate the cases of all suspects arrested without warrant within the limits of their respective stations or agencies, whether the suspects have been admitted to bail or not.
(2) The report shall contain the particulars of the suspects arrested, as prescribed in Section 15 of this Act.
(3) The Magistrate shall, on receipt of the reports, forward them to the Criminal Justice Monitoring Committee, which shall analyze the reports and advise the Attorney-General of the Federation as to the trends of arrests, bail, and related matters.
(4) The Attorney-General of the Federation shall, upon request by the National Human Rights Commission, the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria or a non-governmental organization, make the report available to them.
(5) Where no report is made in accordance with subsection (1) of this section, the magistrate shall forward a report to the Chief Judge of the State and the Attorney-General of the State for appropriate remedial action.
(6) With respect to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, such report referred to in subsection (5) of this section shall be forwarded to the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and the Attorney-General of the Federation for remedial action.

The importance of keeping records of arrests is numerous. These include helping to understand the trends and patterns of criminal activities in the country and developing appropriate responses thereto. It also ensures that people are not detained arbitrarily. Such records and the facts deduced therefrom ought to inform the planning and deployment of human and material resources in the justice sector. Record-keeping also provides an objective basis for holding officials and institutions accountable. Furthermore, such records are sometimes required for measuring the country’s compliance with certain obligations under international treaties such as the Convention against Torture (CAT).
These benefits are lost by the Nigerian criminal justice system. Therefore, the system cannot be regarded as efficient on that account.

The objective is to promote the speedy dispensation of justice. The ACJA contains numerous provisions aimed at speeding up the delivery of justice. But the criminal justice system of the country continues to experience unnecessary delays, such that eight years into the implementation of the ACJA, people are wondering whether the ACJA has made any difference in this respect.

In my humble opinion, the implementation of Section 306 of the ACJA has helped to reduce delays in the determination of high-profile corruption and other cases. It is to the credit of the ACJA and the implementing agencies that Nigeria can now boast of several cases that were successfully concluded.

However, the successes recorded in the earlier years of the ACJA are now being gradually reversed. The factors responsible for this unfortunate turn of events include the phenomenon of de novo trials, whereby trials are commenced afresh due to one reason or another. The decision of the Supreme Court in Udeogu v. FRN (a.k.a. Orji Uzor Kalu) has worsened this problem. Other causes of delay that have persisted in the post-ACJA years include trial-within-trial, lack of technological support for the work of judges, poor oversight of prosecutors, non-application by courts of the case-management provisions of the ACJA aimed at reducing delay, a lack of seriousness by many defense lawyers and the incompetence of several actors in the criminal justice system.

What is the objective of protecting society from crime? It seems that in the eight years of the ACJA, the level of criminality in Nigerian society has aggravated. A contributing factor to the worsening crime situation has been poor application of the ACJA. When lawbreakers and criminals are not promptly brought to book and punished, more people are encouraged to go into criminality. There is no doubt that one of the ways to reduce the growing trend of criminality and impunity in the country is to ensure that the laws are properly applied to punish wrongdoing and encourage law-abiding citizens.

Protection of the rights and interests of suspects and defendants Compared with the other objectives of the ACJA, the protection of the rights and interests of defendants and suspects appears to be the most effective. This is because defense lawyers or members of the Nigerian Bar Association are very effective in advocating for and ensuring that the rights of criminal defendants are well protected. However, protecting the rights and interests of vulnerable defendants remains a major concern.

Promotion of the rights and interests of victims The recognition of the rights and interests of victims was given a major boost by the ACJA. In what has been described as a ‘paradigm shift’, the Act makes copious provisions aimed at protecting victims and complainants. For example, the provisions for victim compensation and restitution and, in some cases, consultation, such as during plea bargaining, While the courts are actively applying these provisions, there remain a host of challenges to their proper implementation. These challenges include a lack of awareness of the provisions by law enforcement personnel, legal practitioners, and many judicial officers. There is also the problem of a lack of victim compensation funds. If these factors are addressed, there will be greater effectiveness in protecting the interests and rights of victims and the attendant benefits to the Nigerian criminal justice system.

Conclusion:

The record of the implementation of the ACJA in the first eight years of its passage has been a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly. There is a need to strengthen the aspects in which a good foundation has been laid, such as in the implementation of Section 306, while efforts must be made to improve the aspects, like the reporting provisions and case management, in which the performance has been poor and abysmal. As good as the law is, it cannot implement itself. The Nigerian Bar Association must therefore urgently take up the task of ensuring that the Attorney-General and other agencies take seriously their roles under the Act and ensure its effective implementation.

This Article Was Written By: Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George, SAN.
Legal Practitioner & Consultant,
President, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), presented at the 2023 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association

Source: BarristNG