ADMINISTRATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT (ACJA), 2015
“The law like science generally, if it could be followed to its roots, would take
us down beneath the veins and ridges to the unplumbed depths of being, the
reality behind the veil. The jurist must not despair because his plummets do not
reach the goal at which in vain for two thousand years and more the
philosophers have been casting theirs…”160
Introduction
There are many factors that influenced the enactment of ACJ as an Act of the National Assembly
in 2015. Some of them were inherent defects in the criminal justice procedure which needed
reform. Others were consequent upon its application as perceived lacunae which the lawyers
utilized in the form of technicalities and some others derived from the goals and purposes of
administration of criminal justice. The intrinsic imperfections which have been mentioned in the
previous chapter were multifaceted and the old methods of prosecuting criminal offences in the
19th century compare with the realities in the 21st century. Second is the introduction of delaying
tactics which culminated congestions of court criminal cases and custody imprisonment. Third is
derived from the overall purposes which could be said are aims to create access to justice,
equality before the law and protection of human dignity in the 21st century. ACJA, therefore, is
an outcome of such a task enacted, after a considerable study of the problems associated with the
Nigerian criminal justice, to tackle those dilemmas and conflicts resulting from criminal
deviance in the society, and to make the society a worthy place for human existence.
At the moment; the rate at which crime is increasing is incomparable to the rate at which it is
brought before the courts for trials in this country. The standard of criminal prosecution does not
even tally with the sophistication of its commissioned and these have dire consequences on the
society because a larger percentage of those crimes are never reported to the police. Those
reported are improperly investigated. Those investigated charges are hardly preferred against the
perceive suspect or the suspect are as usual, at large. Yet again, those arraigned the charge
information is sometimes incomprehensible, incomplete or too sweeping to grant a conviction.
The corollary is winding. The effect is unending. Hence, trials take years and waste of effort
160 Mr. Justice Cardozo, Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928) at pp134-135. Cited by Kim Economides infra p. 18
without any salubrious value to the society. The people are dispirited with the criminal justice
system in the country as cases abound like the sand on the seashore but the murders of Dele
Giwa; Bola Ige and Funsho Williams will suffice. These killings have neither been unravelled so
many years after their commissioned nor is there any iota of hope that they will ever see the light
of the day.
It is pertinent, therefore, to question whether the problem is with adversarial legal system or the
state, particularly, its prerogative to investigate charge, prosecute and punish crime and where it
chooses not; it cannot be forced to?161 Or is it the waiting of Attorney General or Directorate for
Public Prosecution (DPP)‟s advice? It has been argued and submitted that the combined effect of
these has led to custody imprisonment, which has also aggravated prison congestion and human
rights abuses. Not forgetting in a hurry are the umbrage of the police and the lacunae created by
law or legal technicalities employed by lawyers, which have cast odium on the whole process
beginning with arrest, investigation, evidence gathering, arraignment and etcetera.
The system, to say the least, is bereft of any semblance of getting justice guided by the rule of
law. It, also, has stigmatised the administration of criminal justice as a den of injustice in the
country. This has resulted into numbness and the belief that real justice, is beyond the reach of
the ordinary people. „Big men do not come to court but always have their way with the court‟ as
they can afford it and never got tried. They have the means and power to make application for
perpetual injunctions.162 For instance, corruption cases and electoral malpractices are not
seriously ever prosecuted. There is also the angle of ethnic or religious colourised crimes plus
terrorism, insurgency, militancy and kidnappings which are preferentially treated under the
criminal justice system or are never been tried properly. All these complaints led to the
enactment of ACJA 2015 with a mandate to guarantee (a) Access to Justice, (b) Rule of Law and
(c) preservation of human dignity, which the study seeks to examine in this chapter.
Overview of the Act
Before going into the depth of this chapter, it will be paramount, at this juncture, to have a
general explanation or description of the ACJA 2015 in order to fully comprehend its substance
161 Chief Gani Fawehinmi efforts to see that the death by letter-bomb of Dele Giwa was prosecuted but to no avail did
he succeed.
162 Peter Odili, a former governor of Rivers state between 199-2007 took a perpetual injunction from being
prosecuted.
and discourse. The ACJA is, compactly a 49 parts law, divided into 495 sections with 4
Schedules, which scrapped the Criminal Procedure Act, the Criminal Procedure Code and
Administration of Justice Commission and condensed them into ACJA made applicable in all
Federal Courts and courts in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nigeria.
Conceptual framework of the ACJA
The ACJA is an administrative or a procedural law that is expected to command compliance on
its provisions. The question most likely now is not what necessitated its enactment; reasons have
been adduced aplenty, particularly to cure the ills enumerated in the dispensation of criminal
justice. The most effective function, however, will be how to achieve its goals; to guarantee and
protect interests of the suspects, defendants and victims. This is ascertainable from its
preoccupation. In this manner, the ACJA constricts its interests into three obvious objectives
namely, access to justice, rule of law or equality and preservation of human dignity under the
law.
These are termed, by this study, as its conceptual framework targeted to ensure compliance in order
to attain justice. These legal rights are not preserved for certain few163 but for all –the poor, not so
rich and the rich –to be able to approach the law or the courts. The protection of these rights is a
state‟s responsibility under the law to ward-off any infringement. For the reason that the interest of a
suspect, defendant or victim is most guaranteed or protected when he has access to justice, the
process of adjudication is based on law from start to conclusion and the suspect or defendant suffers
no indignities until the court condemns him to be punish according to law.
This means scrupulous application of the ACJA should follow the spirit and letter of
Constitution; even if a person is caught in flagrante delicto (i.e. red handed), which ordinarily
challenges the concept of „presumption of innocence‟ in the mind of an ordinary man who has
seen the fellow actually. The concern here is that access to justice should be made available to
all, guided by rule of law and human dignity under the law preserve.164 This should be so in
order to remedy these problems which necessitated its existence and, for a holistic compliance to
achieve its purpose.165 Hence, punishment of criminal offences should not be left in the hands of
163 Injustice to one is an injustice to all.
164 Ss. 6-8 ACJA
165 Ss. 1 and 2 ACJA
ordinary men with ordinary reasons. This will lead to mob action like the case of the mindless
killings in Alu Four; Kano beheaded woman; Abuja pastor‟s wife who was lynched to dead
and eight killed in Zamfara for allege religious blasphemy.
ACJA as an Access to Justice
Access to justice is a right and a fundamental claim available to all for the protection of interests.
According to Wahab Shittu:
Access to justice will not mean just access to lawyers and courts. It is much
more broader than this as it encompasses a recognition that everyone is entitled
to the protection of the law and that whatever rights we seek to protect are
meaningless unless those rights can be enforced with minimal constraints to the
aggrieved persons and under circumstances ensuring that all manner of people
are treated fairly according to the law and are able to get appropriate redress in
circumstances when they are treated unfairly. In this context, there is no access
to justice where citizens especially the marginalized groups not only conceive
the system as frightening, or alien or in circumstances where citizens have no
lawyers either because of inadequate resources to access them, or where
individuals lack access to information or knowledge of their rights or where the
system is fundamentally weak in delivering justice to the citizens.166.
The ACJA has generated so much controversy 167 and arguments, about the type of the concept
of justice. In this vein, access to justice is as distinct and complex as rights and interests of
people are distinguishable. This complexity represents on one hand the formal ability to appear
in court, and the other hand extensive social context of court system, or the methodical
hindrances faced by different members of the community. In the first, the ACJA guarantees
ability to appear in court. But one may asked; what does it mean to be given the ability to appear
in court or the ability to appear in court of what relevance is it to a crime victim, at worst a
suspect or a defendant? The ACJA in section 17(2) provided for legal aid and the Legal Act168
provide in
S. 8. (1) The grant of legal aid, advice and access to justice shall be provided by
the Council in 3 broad areas, namely, Criminal Defence Service, Advice and
166 Wahab Shittu (2015); what‟s wrong with Administration of Criminal Justice Act? In The Nation Newspaper; August
25, 2015. Retrieved from http://thenationonlineng.net/whats-wrong-with-administration-of-criminal-justice-
act-2/ on 16/08/2016.
167 Abiola Sanni op. cit. p. 167
168 LEGAL AID ACT, 2011
PART II for LEGAL AID ADVICE thus
Assistance in Civil matters including legal representation in court and
Community Legal Services subject to merits and indigence tests for the parties.
(2) The Council, shall establish, maintain and develop a service known as the
Criminal Defence Service for the purpose of assisting indigent persons involved
in criminal investigation or proceedings specified in the Second Schedule to this
Act, access to such advice, assistance and representation as the interest of
justice requires. (3) The Council shall establish and maintain a service to be
known as the Civil Litigation Service for the purpose of assisting indigent
persons to access such advice, assistance, and representation in court where the
interest of justice demands, to secure, defend, enforce, protect or otherwise
exercise any right, obligation, duty, privilege interest or service to which that
person is ordinarily entitled under the Nigerian legal system. (4) Legal Aid shall
also be granted in respect of any breach or denial of any such right, obligation,
duty, privilege or service and the Council shall be responsible for the
representation before any court or tribunal for such civil matters.
The ability to appear before court though not easily definable, serves to focus on the basic purposes
of the legal system, for people to defend their rights and/or resolve their disputes under the general
auspices of the state, being made accessible to all. Doing so may lead to results that are socially
just.169 Access to justice is an “understandable approach that underscores legal problems in
contemporary societies”170 and goes much beyond the earlier difficulties contained
in the now repealed Acts.171
Perhaps, the reason for access to justice can be traced to the ruination of legal institutions, which
inspire the desire to make the rights of ordinary people real, not merely static or symbolic. This
rather calls for far-reaching reforms and for new thinking. This reasoning refuses to accept as
unchallengeable any procedures and institutions that characterize the machinery of criminal
justice delivery as wickedness. This is what has been already accomplished with coming of
ACJA.172 The problem worthy of evaluation is their basic accomplishments, ideas, and
proposals, as well as the risks and limits of this necessary, but daring, method of legal reform.
169 Garth, Bryant G. and Cappelletti, Mauro (1978), "Access to Justice: The Newest Wave in the Worldwide
Movement to Make Rights Effective". Articles by Maurer Faculty. Paper 1142. Buffalo Law Review Vol. 27. Pg.182.
Retrieved from http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub/1142 on 22/08/2016
170 Garth and Cappellettti op. cit. pp. 182-183
171 The CPA and CPC
172 Ss. 1, 7, & 8 of the ACJA
Regrettably, "access to justice” under criminal procedure is subject to the command of the
state. This does not only make it challenging to understand the goals being sought, but it also
makes it difficult to translate these goals into practical plans and programs. For instance, a
private citizen who is a victim to criminal offence is likely unable to institute criminal
proceedings against his assailant.173 Yet, access to justice, is an essential tool for the protection
of human rights and their enforcement174 on the behalf of a suspect who has been detained
unnecessarily. He may issue a writ of Habeas Corpus against his continued detention by any law
enforcement agent. These are some obstacles toward the realisation of access to justice in
Nigeria, namely, delay in administration of justice, poverty, over reliance on technical rules. The
others are the problem of locus standi, and illiteracy, which Okogbule remarked that:
The effectiveness of a country‟s judicial system can be measured by the efficacy
of its access to justice. Access to justice is an essential instrument for human
rights and the rule of law to flourish in Nigeria. The setbacks to access to justice
in Nigerian civil and criminal justice system are quite exigent. These setbacks
include: delays, cost of litigation, complex legal rules and procedure, lack of
awareness and legal knowledge. Delay and corruption are also some of the
factors hindering smooth flow of access to justice.175
Apparently, the belief is that ACJA pledges access to justice with practical importance as routine
mechanisms designed to safeguard proper prosecution of crimes, citizens‟ chance in court
to secure their innocence, if at all, against such accusations and to even petition the state or seek
compensation upon violation of human rights in the most lawful way.176 The aforementioned
attentions are regulations and processes to approach the courts for the purpose of constitutional
rights and legal compulsions. Combined with other variables like the physical conditions of the
premises wherever justice is meted out, the quality of the human and material resources
obtainable or available thereat, the worth of integrity provided, the interval taken for the
delivery, the ethical quality of the judge, the observance of the standard of the rule of law, the
affordability of the cost of trial to find justice in terms of money and time and the quality of legal
consultants on the both sides, the virtuousness and impartiality of the operators of the system.
173 S. 106 ACJA
174 Okogbule N. S. (2005), “Access to Justice and Human Rights Protection in Nigeria: Problems and Prospects”,
in Sur, Rev. Int. direitos human. vol.2 no.3 São Paulo, available at
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid. Accessed on 12/8/2016
175 Okogbule N. S. (2005), op. cit. p.
176 Ss. 93-99 ACJA
From the preceding, the idea177 embraces the devices open to any social order and functions as a
measurement balancing the rule of law and the worth of government. The transparency and
accountability are operative cure-all aimed at social, economic and political development. For
that purpose limits the access to justice and human rights protection. This is stemming from the
statement that as soon as individuals have access to court only then and there can they advocate
and pursue the protection of such elementary rights. At times there are authorised arrangements
prevailing in a system which possibly will prohibits the citizens from having access to the courts
for the administration and fortification of their basic rights.178 What is obvious may perhaps be
that: access to justice under the ACJA is a right central to the people whether rich or not so rich
whose right or rights have remained assaulted or maligned upon. This right, though not as
conventional as the definitive human rights179 under Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution,
nonetheless comes into existence simply as sprout upon their breach.
Furthermore, the right remains attenuated by reason that a victim regardless of the infringement
to his right may merely report and grumble. He cannot institute criminal proceedings only the
state through both police and attorney general reserved the right as officers of the state to charge
and prosecute an offender or a suspect. It is inconsistent that the law that block a victim
authorises a suspect or defendant who senses that his human rights have been violated to institute
legal proceedings against the state or any officer who is directly involve. These teething troubles
may be noticeable in the scheme and character of the political and economic systems a nation is adapted
to. In Nigeria, a combination of these complications has led to a complex ineffectiveness of the legal
direction to secure access to justice, especially, the neck and neck illiteracy and poverty of the people.
This has remained too high, and the state of affairs of survival defies the option to eke out a living. Hence,
a concern about accurate pledge of access to justice unavoidably is not in the things ordinary people
desire to own.180 Professor Claude Ake181 stressed the impact of these complications thus:
For reasons which need not detain us here, some of the rights important in the
West are of no interest and no value to most Africans. For instance, freedom of
177 S. 1.(1) ACJA
178 S. 308 CFRN 1999
179 Ss. 33-42 CFRN 1999
180 Okagbule op. cit. in Sur, Rev. Int. direitos human. vol.2 no.3 São Pau lo Dec. 2005. Available at:
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid. Accessed on 12/8/2016
181 Ake Claude (1987), "The African Context of Human Rights" in International Conference on Human Rights in the
African Context Port Harcourt, 9-11 June, quoted in T. Akinola Aguda (1989), Human Rights and the Right to Development in
Africa (Lagos: Nigerian Institute of International Affairs), p. 26.
speech and freedom of the press do not mean much for a largely illiterate rural
community completely absorbed in the daily rigors of the struggle for survival ...
if a Bill of Rights is to make sense, it must include, among others, a right to work
and to a living wage, a right to shelter, to health, to education. That is the least
we can strive for if we are ever going to have a society which realizes basic
human rights ... in Africa, if liberal rights are to be meaningful in the context of
a people struggling to stay afloat under very adverse economic and political
conditions, they have to be concrete. Concrete in the sense that their practical
import is visible and relevant to the conditions of existence of the people to
whom they apply. And most importantly, concrete in the sense that they can be
realized by their beneficiaries.182
Altogether, access to justice has been construed to suggest severally or one of the followings: a
right to appear in court or the method or attitude on the path to fairness; the way of administering
law according to what is due or deserved. However, as it concerns criminal justice, access to
justice may well mean (i) the right of the suspect, victim, defendant and society to come to court
and get what is appropriately justified, (ii) the ideology that guides the management of criminal
justice by having cases concluded appropriately in court of law. By means of this, the
aforementioned stands fathomable as justice pays everyman for his demeanours. The breakdown
of the circumstances will at this moment be deliberated in subsequent paragraphs.
