BEVERLY HILLS, CA, October 29, (THEWILL) – Finally, the House of Representatives Tuesday approved a procedure for the administration of plea bargain as a means of facilitating easy and quick dispensation of criminal justice in the country.
The House, in doing so, also argued that the process would help in decongesting the nation’s overpopulated prisons and restore sanity to the prison system.
Plea bargain is a quasi-criminal judgment and/or an outright court verdict in a criminal case, whereby a prosecutor offers the defendant an opportunity to plead guilty on his own volition, based on a mutually satisfactory disposition to ensure that the accused pleads guilty to one of the counts he is being charged for a lesser punishment.
The approval was consequent upon the consideration of a report of the Committee of Justice, which seeks to repeal the Criminal Procedure Act by the House, with a view to making speedy and efficient the administration of criminal justice in Nigeria.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Ali Ahmad (PDP, Kwara), while briefing the House in the committee of the whole, said the report which has 494 clauses, with 47 chapters, has brought changes on the rules and procedures guiding the operations of courts in criminal proceedings.
In the new procedure, the lawmakers addressed clear procedures for implementing plea bargaining and measure to prevent its abuse, as they argued that it was introduced because of its effectiveness with speedy trial, as a court can proceed to a plea bargain after establishing some level of evidences, which is similar to that of the United States.
Plea bargain was first experimented in Nigeria during the trials of the retired Inspector General of Police, Mr Tafa Balogun, and some ex-governors. In Balogun’s case, he entered a plea bargain and was said to have agreed to forfeit money, stocks, and property worth N17 billion in exchange for mitigated punishment.
Another case was that involving former Bayelsa governor, D.S.P Alamieseigha, who confessed and forfeited some of his properties at V & A Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa; at 32 Amazon Street, Maitama, Abuja and N1bn worth of shares in former Bond Bank.
Also in the amendment, defence lawyers can no longer apply for stays of proceeding as a way of eliminating justice delays, even as courts would henceforth be treating cases continuously, without adjournments, once a case is filed.
Similarly, the amendments have made restrictions on the number of adjournments by courts and that ongoing trials by a judge must now be continued by any judge who takes over from one who may have been elevated from the position, as against starting the trial afresh.
While expressing worry over the billions of amounts being spent in an effort to decongest Nigerian prisons, the House also made it mandatory upon Chief Judges to be paying monthly visits to prisons as a way of reducing prisons congestions.
It also established that a proper documentation and establishment of a central criminal records registry at the states and federal levels and also addressed the accountability mechanisms for awaiting trial persons.
By Saint Mugaga, Abuja
