What are some of the important laws that the NLRC has been able to reform in recent years and to what extent has the commission been able to fulfill its mandate?
We have worked on the Trademarks Act and the Merchandise Act, now what we did in these laws was to try and harmonise the two resolutions because they seem to deal with the same subject and they deal with trademarks, trade services and some of those ones that deal with the business community. We have worked on Trustee Investment Act. The Trustee Investment Act deals essentially with trust properties; how trust properties are to be managed.
Now, by law you discover what the law provides is that when trust properties are being managed by trust managers, there are specific companies that these managers are supposed to invest in.
We looked at the entire economy; we looked at those things that will strengthen the economy and also taking into consideration the risk that is involved in investing. We came up with legislation and in that legislation even trustees should also be paid from the trust properties. Now we specify how these things are to be done so that anybody who is managing a trust property, should now know that ‘I have paid for it and I have to exercise due diligence in managing’. We have also looked at the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA). The CAMA as it is, is a child of the Nigeria Law Reform Commission. We liaise also with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to find out the challenges they face in operating that, identify the areas, we reformed it and will now send it back to the federal government.
We have also looked at the Act that deals with detention of persons. There is this legislation we have which says; anybody who is kept in custody for a period longer than the time he is supposed to serve if found guilty, that he can be discharged. By law, when someone is arrested and not tried and kept in prison, if you are convicted for an offense no court imposes the maximum sentence. For instance if the maximum sentence for theft is seven years and you are convicted for theft, judges are enjoined not to impose the maximum sentence.
They impose the maximum sentence only if the person is a habitual criminal and everything has been done to ensure he is reformed; those are the very few circumstance judges can impose such sentences. But that law says if you are arrested, not tried and kept in custody for a period longer than the time you are supposed to serve if you are convicted, the chief judge, in exercise of his discretion as he goes round for prison decongestion, can discharge you. But we say that law is not good enough and we reformed it and that was on the premise of people languishing in prison for longer than necessary and these are also laws that we thought if they are put in place it will reduce prison congestion.
Now we have come up with what we call sentencing guideline. Sentencing guideline is quite new in this country but it is practiced in the developed world. The law on sentencing guideline is simply that, they are some defined parameters that are set out that once a judge convicts somebody for committing an offense before they impose sentence, they look at these parameters.
For instance for theft, one magistrate may sentence to two years, another magistrate next door may convict another person for the same offense to five years imprisonment and yet another magistrate next door will sentence another person for the same offense to six months. Now the thing is that the law allows judges’ discretion after conviction; they are to use their discretion in sentencing. Now what sentencing guideline does is that judges will have to exercise their discretion within the frame work of the guideline.
How do you implement most of the works and bills of the NLRC?
That is our greatest challenge here and that is the area we are working to make sure we improve on. The law setting up this commission provides that when law reform finishes the work, we submit it to the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF). It is the AGF who will now submit it to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). It is the FEC that will now take it to the National Assembly as an executive bill. We borrowed the law from England; in England the AG is a member of parliament. So when law reform is submitted to the AG it automatically goes to parliament, but in our system here the AGF is not a member of parliament so he has to go to FEC before it is passed on to the National Assembly by FEC. So the chain here is quite long and that affects the smooth transmission of our report to the National Assembly which finally enacts it.
Not too long ago, stakeholders sat on the matter and agreed that as much as we are an arm of the executive we should continue to submit our reports to the AGF who in turn forwards it to the FEC. But then because we are being funded by public funds, the public are entitled to having our reports. It was agreed that as we submit our reports to the AGF we should also be submitting our reports to the NASS so that if the AGF cannot present the bill to them they can also look at what we have done. If they are satisfied with what we have done, they can proceed to enact it without necessarily waiting for the AGF to go to FEC before it gets to them (NASS). Now that has enabled us to come up with the proposal to amend our laws to allow us to be doing that.
The NASS seems to have blessed that arrangement and recently the AGF also did a similar thing in the sense that; they had a bill – the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) – and realised that before that bill will go to the FEC and to the NASS it will take a long time principally because that bill has so many sections – over 400 sections. They thought if it goes to the FEC with 400 sections it will take FEC three to five seatings before they look at the entire bill and we thought the FEC does not have that luxury of time to give to one bill, so the AGF sent it direct to the NASS by way of private members bill. Today it has been passed. President Jonathan signed it before leaving office.
It has been observed by stakeholders that there are so many laws that punish rape and so we do not need the Anti-rape law recently passed by NASS, what is your take here?
We need that law, even though we have it in the Penal Code, it has not stopped us from having that legislation as a separate legislation. Now if we look at the anti-corruption legislation we have today like the EFCC Act, those offenses in the EFCC Act are offenses under the Penal Code and the Criminal Code and if we look at the ICPC Act, the offenses in the ICPC Act are offenses in the Penal Code and the Criminal Code. What lawyers do, particularly the prosecutors; if you commit an offense they will charge you both under the Penal Code and the Criminal Code and under the EFCC Act so that the judge will look at the legislations.
Do you have any appeal to make?
First of all, my appeal is to the civil society organisations, there is a need for them to intervene in terms of creating awareness about some of the activities of this commission. When we reform alone it is not for a particular person or group of persons, it is for the benefit of Nigerians and Nigeria. The process of law making is not a one man’s business; my appeal is that they should also be involved in the advocacy for the passage of some of these legislations.
You see, the pride of every law reformer is to be able to see his product being implemented. So our pride is when we reform an act or a legislation, that reform legislation should finally be enacted into law. Once we see that it gives us greater confidence to do much more.
The public officers’ protection law has been criticised because some erring officers are protected, what is the NLRC doing about this?
I agree with you absolutely, that there is a problem with that legislation. Indeed it is one of our projects for this year. First of all, what the legislation seeks to protect is public officers but when you look at the implementation and the judicial decisions on that law today, public institutions are also protected and what that law says is that a public officer cannot be proceeded against after three months from the occurrence of the event which is the cause of action.
There have been so many cases where people were injured and went to the hospital, they were on treatment for one year and on recovering from the hospital file an action and the court said they are barred. Now if a non-public officer commits the act in question, the statue provides for six years to maintain an action to seek redress for that, but when a public officer commits the same act, the time to sue is limited to three months to protect the public officer.
Certainly if there is anybody that needs protection it is the non-public officers that need protection rather than a public officer. The public officer exercises that function in trust for the people, so they should be accountable to the people but they now limit the period you can seek redress against him to just three months but when a non-public officer does the same thing we have six years to file an action to seek redress against him, some of us think that act is not good enough. Indeed we are working on it we will soon go public so that we can seek the view of the public on it.
