By Ahmed Ahmed
The Law Hub Development and Advocacy Center, a non-governmental organisation, has called on states across the country to adopt and implement the Administration of Criminal Justice 2015 (ACJL) into law.
Mr Osita Chukwuma, Executive Director of Center made the call at the ACJLs implementation assessment and training workshop of criminal justice stakeholders with the support of MacArthur Foundation
on Wednesday in Bauchi.
He said the project focuses on Popularizing and Disseminating the Administration of Criminal Justice Laws of States and continuously updating the Laws to Reflect Amendments.
“Law Hub successfully implemented the first phase of this project in six states namely; Nasarawa, Kano, Akwa Ibom, Oyo, Enugu and Adamawa.
“This project intends to achieve this objective by assessing the needs of individual states and providing technical and logistical support to the criminal justice sectors of the various states we have earmarked to support across the country,” he said
Chukwuma, represented by Mr Joshua Dada from the Center said the center consistently advocates for the imperative need for all states in Nigeria to adopt and adapt the ACJA 2015 to suit their peculiarities.
“We are particularly excited that Bauchi State has not been left out of this but has done the needful by adopting the ACJA 2015 and passing it into law.
We also advocate that states should ensure the full implementation of all the provisions contained in the ACJL, especially those provisions targeted at reforms.
“We also urge all the stakeholders to deliberately and consistently make use of the Practice Direction made pursuant to the ACJL as this would greatly improve the prospects of implementing the law.
According to him, Law Hub wants to also know what aspects of the law have so far been implemented and what challenges have been experienced so far with its implementation.
Law Hub wants to know what aspects of the law have so far been implemented,what challenges and sections of the law which have not been implemented
“The need for this assessment is for knowledge and experience sharing among others. Law Hub would like to learn lessons from the knowledge and experience of the stakeholders in the Bauchi state justice sector
He said the outcome of this assessment would also be helpful to other states where Law Hub is implementing this project as the lessons learnt here can be cascaded to other states around the country.
Mrs Gambo Wakili recommended the need to promoting effective and fair administration of criminal justice law
She also advocated for enhanced Justice delivery to reduce delay.
The News Agency of Nigeria NAN reports that the Stakeholders at the workshop include Judges, Police, Correctional Services, Department of Security Services, Media among others.