HUMAN Rights Law Service (HURILAWS) is rooting for the separation of the office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) from the office of the various state Ministries of justice, as a way of ensuring that the case files referred to it (DPP) for advice by the police are promptly attended to.
The group also wants the reform of the Police in view of the important role it (police) plays in the country’s criminal justice administration, noting “the Criminal Process in Nigeria begins with the arrest of a suspect for good, bad or no reasons at all. At this stage, the average suspect forms an opinion about the nation’s criminal justice system from his interaction with the police personnel”.
HURILAWS in a statement by Stanley Ibe, made available to Vanguard said “this is exactly why we think it is critical to reform the Police Force. The reform should incorporate massive re-orientation and mass mobilization for the police and citizens respectively. Officers and men of the force must be made to understand that the suspect is at worst, a suspect entitled to the full complement of fundamental rights entrenched in the constitution, perhaps constitutional and civic education should become a prerequisite for admittance and promotion for all categories of police men”.
“Respect for the rights of suspects will drastically reduce the incidence of ill-treatment at police formations. Every effort must be made subsequent to arrest to conclude investigations and press charges within reasonable time (not more than two months-where this is not feasible, the suspect must be given the option of bail pending completion of investigations). Where this system is adopted, the laxity currently pervading police investigations will reduce and the menace of holding charge will be gradually eliminated from Nigeria’s criminal justice system”, adding that directing police officers to arraign suspects before appropriate courts will help stem the tide of unduly long detention without trial.
"The justice ministries should be equipped to handle the workload at this stage. Often times, the refrain from Investigating Police Officers (IPOs) is ‘we are waiting for DPPs advice’ and with that the accused is licensed to perpetual detention".
According to him, “it may be a good idea to make the Directorate of Public Prosecutions autonomous of the Justice Ministry. That could improve efficiency devoid of the usual bureaucracy associated with government offices in Nigeria".
