Former Delta State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Dafe Akpedeye, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) tells Senior Correspondent, ONYEWUCHI OJINNAKA, the unconstitutionality of parading suspects by the police, lapses in our criminal justice system, among other issues.
There are suggestions that the office of the Attorney-General should be separated from that of Minister of Justice at the federal level and Commissioner for Justice in the states. What is your position on it?
The thought of splitting the office has been an on-going debate. The main reason for the recommendation to split the office of the AGF is to enhance the administration of justice and to ensure the independence of the office of the Attorney-General from political influence.
Over the years, the corruption level of public officers has risen tremendously, resulting in flagrant abuses of office, which I believe has led to the agitation of lawyers, activists and human rights groups for the separation of the office of the Attorney- General from that of the Minister of Justice, as the AGF is considered a part of the executive and therefore cannot be said to exercise his powers independently and freely, especially in the prosecution of corrupt public officers.
Advocates for the separation of the office often point to the potential for abuse of power by the AGF, citing cases where certain corrupt public officers should have been prosecuted for their offences but have gone scot-free. There are also those who are of the opinion that separation is not the answer, believing as they do that the ‘status quo’ will remain because of the manner in which governments operate, so that though the AGF is tenured he/she would still face political pressures in the performance of his/her duties. I am therefore of the view that a career Attorney-General appointed statutorily might not offer the Eldorado being sought.
Nigeria police often parade suspects as criminals before the public without proper conviction by the court. Is their action covered by constitution?
Sadly to say, Nigeria is a country of absurdities; a country where anything can happen and things do, in fact, happen on a daily basis. Parading of suspects by the police before prior to their arraignment, trail and conviction is an aberration. It is unconstitutional and makes nonsense of the doctrine of the presumption of innocence until found guilty enshrined in our constitution. It amounts to gross violation of the suspect’s fundamental human right to fair hearing. By virtue of Section 36(5) and (6) of 1999 constitution, an accused person is presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. Nowhere in our statutes can a provision be found empowering the police or any other law enforcement agency to first humiliate a suspect, thoroughly shame and disgrace him before passing him over to a law court for his trial.
The only instance where the police are allowed by law to parade a suspect is where there is need for the identification of the suspect by a witness who claims to have seen the suspect commit the alleged offence. In this case, the suspect is lined up amid other people while the witness attempts to point him out from the crowd. This is called identification parade, and it does not take place before the press. Parading suspected criminals before the media is already convicting the person in the court of public opinion.
There is no way you can ensure that a person has a free and fair trial if you have already given the public a bad impression about the person. There is no doubt that the single most important reason the police engage in this practice is for publicity to call attention to itself and make the public believe that it is actually fighting crime. But it is a poor approach in winning back the confidence of the public that has long lost faith in the ability of the Nigerian police to protect it in the face of the current, unprecedented upsurge in scale of violent crimes across the land.
What is your assessment of criminal justice system in our country?
The importance of the criminal justice system to the smooth running of any society cannot be over-emphasised. A sound criminal justice system in any nation is a precursor to economic growth, political stability and social equilibrium. Indeed, an effective criminal justice system is fundamental to the maintenance of law and order. However, in Nigeria, widespread corruption and disregard for due process and the rule of law continued to blot Nigeria’s criminal justice system. Many people are arbitrarily arrested and detained for months without charge. Police continued to ask people to pay money for their release from detention. Many detainees were kept on remand in prison for lengthy periods and in harsh conditions. Court processes remained slow and largely distrusted.
A criminal justice system that is inefficient, inadequate, corrupt, infrastructural deficient, under-financed, under-manned and prone to abuse such as the present Nigerian criminal justice system is a threat to the rule of law and all other indices of democracy and good governance. A lot of work needs to be done particularly in the areas of delay in the trial of cases, coordination among agencies of the criminal justice reform, sentencing guidelines, prison decongestion, and alternatives to imprisonment. What is certain, however, is that the general consequence of these problems has been a non-performing criminal justice system leading to a denial of justice either to the defendant or the victim?
As a former number one law officer of Delta State, what would you advance as your achievements while in office?
Upon my appointment, I had my goal encapsulated under one head; which is to run the Ministry of Justice as a private concern by trying to eliminate all bureaucratic bottlenecks impeding quick service delivery. This was largely easy for me, given that I had, prior to the appointment, been engaged in a successful private practice.
To encourage the staff that will help in actualising this goal, I devised a reward system that primed them to put in their best at little or minimal cost. A commendation letter signed by me was given to any counsel who successfully completes a case. At the end of each year, staff of every department filled and submitted forms, nominating the best staff of the department. The result is collated and the person that emerges as best staff is rewarded with token sum or souvenir. This served as a tonic that galvanised the whole ministry to better efficiency. People were willing to put extra hours outside the official time to deliver on assignment, in a civil service that hitherto saw that as taboo.
I also noticed that the work environment was depressing, as it was overcrowded. The accommodation housing the ministry was rented. I was able to convince the governor, despite paucity of funds, to ensure that a befitting head office complex was procured for the ministry. We also ensured that the zonal offices were revamped and made habitable. I realised that for the ministry to tackle the problems facing it, we needed to look for ways to generate our funds internally. This we did by charging fees albeit minimally from our primary clients, the government and some private entities we rendered services to. Within a short period of time, we were able to generate funds internally to help us in solving some of the ministry’s pressing needs.
The icing on the cake was publishing the Laws of Delta and the annotated version of the Laws of Delta State. Though our predecessors had broken some grounds on it, we were able to complete it, and so for the first time in our court, we relied on the Laws of Delta State and not that of the defunct Bendel State.