While raising the alarm, the President of the NBA, Afam Osigwe, who stated that 65 per cent of inmates were identified to be awaiting, frowned at the conflicting judgements from courts of coordinate jurisdiction in the country.
According to Osigwe, during the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the NBA, held in Akure, Ondo State capital, the development, if not tackled, will impinge on the integrity of the judiciary.
The NBA President disclosed that the NBA has set up an Adjudicative Review Committee to address the conflicting judgements and also identify reasons behind such an anomaly.
He said: “Those are the condemned criminals, as you call them, who are already sentenced. They have had their day in court. We worry about those who are simply remanded in prison facilities without having their cases tried, or their cases taking an intolerable length of time to conclude, on account of one delay or the other, and sometimes serving more time in prison than they would if the court had convicted them, or even acquiring one disease or the other in prison, or even dying.
“We have mandated our Human Rights Committee to work with the Chief Judges of the states to ensure that they do prison visits and also to give a directive to all magistrates that if you give a remand order, you must give a return date for a review, and that if the prosecution, Ministry of Justice, fails to file a charge, they should order the release of such persons so that people do not spend time in prison detention without being charged to court.
“The bar is getting this engagement to ensure that people who have no reason to be in detention are released and that people do not spend a long time in detention without a charge being filed against them.”
The association noted that it is ensuring that its disciplinary process works and petitions received against lawyers by members of the public by lawyers and litigants are attended to. The group of legal practitioners also stressed that it is trying to ensure that disciplinary panels work, and that where there is a prima facie case or where it is believed that there is reason to go forward against the lawyer for him to face the legal practitioner disciplinary committee, that such a lawyer goes there.
