The war against corruption led by President Muhammadu Buhari with the
rate at which many of the cases under the Buhari’s anti-graft war are
moving, majority of them will likely outlive the Buhari administration,
lose steam, become forgotten and join the league of abandoned and
unresolved high-profile corruption cases littering the courts.
Indeed, defence lawyers in many cases are employing dilatory tactics mainly to buy time and allow the Buhari era to pass.
Sadly, some judges are knowingly or inadvertently playing into the hands of such lawyers by acceding to constant requests for long adjournments, against the provision of the ACJA 2015, which was specifically designed to eliminate delay in trial of criminal cases.
The ACJA has been described as a revolutionary law and one of its radical provisions is its Section 306 which abolishes stay of proceedings in criminal cases.
Though the law does not stop any defendant from challenging the validity of the charges, its Section 221 forbids the judge in the lower court from delivering a ruling on such preliminary objection until the final judgment in the case.
Section 396 of the Act also provides for day-to-day hearing or an adjournment not beyond 14 working days.
But these legal provisions, specifically put in place to forestall a situation where corruption cases last for decades in court, are being observed more in breach by majority of the judges and lawyers involved in high-profile corruption cases.
The defence lawyers have also resorted to other dilatory tactics not pre-empted by the ACJA, including raising incessant objections to admissibility of documents and competence of prosecution witnesses to testify.
Another delay tactics being employed by defence lawyer is to wait till when the case has reached an advanced stage and then accuse the judge of bias with a request that the case be transferred to another judge where it will start afresh.
For example, the N22.8bn alleged fraud case of a former Chief of Air Staff, Adesola Amosu (retd.), which began in June 2016, has been bogged down on account of objections and endless adjournments.
Though the EFCC listed 40 witnesses in the case, more than one year after trial started, the anti-graft has hardly been able to call more than two.
The use of objection is particularly bad when there are many defendants and defence lawyers, as in Amosu’s case.
The lawyers take turns to severally raise objections anchored on one issue after another, causing the judge to write and deliver rulings on objections every step of the way.
Indeed, defence lawyers in many cases are employing dilatory tactics mainly to buy time and allow the Buhari era to pass.
Sadly, some judges are knowingly or inadvertently playing into the hands of such lawyers by acceding to constant requests for long adjournments, against the provision of the ACJA 2015, which was specifically designed to eliminate delay in trial of criminal cases.
The ACJA has been described as a revolutionary law and one of its radical provisions is its Section 306 which abolishes stay of proceedings in criminal cases.
Though the law does not stop any defendant from challenging the validity of the charges, its Section 221 forbids the judge in the lower court from delivering a ruling on such preliminary objection until the final judgment in the case.
Section 396 of the Act also provides for day-to-day hearing or an adjournment not beyond 14 working days.
But these legal provisions, specifically put in place to forestall a situation where corruption cases last for decades in court, are being observed more in breach by majority of the judges and lawyers involved in high-profile corruption cases.
The defence lawyers have also resorted to other dilatory tactics not pre-empted by the ACJA, including raising incessant objections to admissibility of documents and competence of prosecution witnesses to testify.
Another delay tactics being employed by defence lawyer is to wait till when the case has reached an advanced stage and then accuse the judge of bias with a request that the case be transferred to another judge where it will start afresh.
For example, the N22.8bn alleged fraud case of a former Chief of Air Staff, Adesola Amosu (retd.), which began in June 2016, has been bogged down on account of objections and endless adjournments.
Though the EFCC listed 40 witnesses in the case, more than one year after trial started, the anti-graft has hardly been able to call more than two.
The use of objection is particularly bad when there are many defendants and defence lawyers, as in Amosu’s case.
The lawyers take turns to severally raise objections anchored on one issue after another, causing the judge to write and deliver rulings on objections every step of the way.
President Buhari,
whose major campaign promise was to rid the country of corruption, has
continued to lament the snail’s pace of the corruption cases under his
watch as time runs out on his administration.
“I am worried that the expectation of the public has yet to be met by the judiciary with regard to the removal of delay and the toleration of delay tactics by lawyers,” the President fumed last year July when he attended the opening ceremony of a workshop jointly organised in Abuja by PACAC, the National Judicial Institute, the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
“So far, the corruption cases filed by government are not progressing as speedily as they should in spite of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015, especially because the courts allow some lawyers to frustrate the reforms introduced by the law. This certainly needs to change if we are to make success in our collective effort in the fight against corruption,” Buhari lamented.
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“I am worried that the expectation of the public has yet to be met by the judiciary with regard to the removal of delay and the toleration of delay tactics by lawyers,” the President fumed last year July when he attended the opening ceremony of a workshop jointly organised in Abuja by PACAC, the National Judicial Institute, the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
“So far, the corruption cases filed by government are not progressing as speedily as they should in spite of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015, especially because the courts allow some lawyers to frustrate the reforms introduced by the law. This certainly needs to change if we are to make success in our collective effort in the fight against corruption,” Buhari lamented.
In this article: