Criminal Justice: Law Hub Emphasises Need for Synergy among Stakeholders

Wale Igbintade

An independent non-governmental organisation, Law Hub Development and Advocacy Centre, has called for synergy, sharing of information, knowledge and skills among stakeholders, as a way of strengthening justice administration system in the country. The appeal was made by the Executive Director, LawHub, Mr. Osita Chukwuma, at the ACJL implementation assessment and training workshop of criminal justice stakeholders held yesterday in Lagos State.

Chukwuma, in his opening remarks, said that a good partnership among all the stakeholders in the justice sector would help the country achieve a robust sector, and further deepen the dispensation of the justice delivery in the country.

He highlighted the collaborative efforts with Law Hub and the MacArthur Foundation in addressing gaps and ensuring the smooth dispensation of justice.

According to him, the workshop also called for continued support and collaboration among stakeholders to achieve landmark success in criminal justice reform, benefiting not only Lagos State but also the entire country.

He said Law Hub is committed to supporting Lagos and other states in the federation to achieve remarkable landmark success stories.

According to him, “We are happy to confirm that Lagos is the first state in which Law Hub Development and Advocacy Centre is implementing the second phase of this MacArthur Foundation supported project, having successfully implemented the first phase in 2023.

“This project by Law Hub focuses on popularising 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 of 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. This will involve convening of various training and technical workshops within the two year life span of this project, sharing of knowledge and experiences, convening technical and capacity building workshops and conducting various assessments and performance appraisals across the states among others.

“The recognition of these cross-cutting challenges is the stimulus required to energize us to discharge our responsibilities dutifully and passionately with the hope that our names will be emblazoned in the annals of history as champion of criminal justice reforms in the country.

“We recognize and consistently advocate the imperative need for all states in Nigeria to adopt and adapt the ACJA 2015 to suit their peculiarities, and we are particularly excited that Lagos State has not been left out of this but has done the needful by adopting the ACJA 2015 and passing it into law.”

He urged 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 as it would have practical implementation possibilities in the courts within which the rules apply.

According to him, Law Hub wants to know what aspects of the law have so far been implemented and what challenges have been experienced so far with its implementation.

Chukwuma said: “Law Hub would also want to know the sections of the law which have not been implemented and what challenges have been experienced with implementing the said sections.

“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 Lagos State justice sector which would in turn help the team in determining the kind of support which can be provided for the state during the life span of the project.

“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 for national implementation.

In his goodwill message, the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Kazeem Alogba, represented by Justice Hakeem Oshodi reiterated the significance of the workshop in enhancing the administration of criminal justice, achieve a balanced Justice, and the protection of rights and public interest.