S/Court urged to declare illegal AG’s defence of criminal suspects
Can officials of a state’s Ministry of Justice act as prosecutors and defence lawyers in the same criminal case? This is the question to be determined in an appeal currently before the Supreme Court, initiated by the Ogun State government. The appeal (marked: SC/449/2014) is against the March 27, 2014 judgment of the Court […]
Can officials of a state’s Ministry of Justice act as prosecutors and defence lawyers in the same criminal case?
This is the question to be determined in an appeal currently before the Supreme Court, initiated by the Ogun State government.
The appeal (marked: SC/449/2014) is against the March 27, 2014 judgment of the Court of Appeal, Ibadan Division, which upheld the appeal by a convict, Ibitoye Matthew, who was convicted by a High Court of Ogun State, and ordered a retrial on the grounds that he was denied fair hearing.
Matthew was arraigned before the High Court of Ogun State on September 11, 2007 for the offences of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and attempted armed robbery.
Because he could not afford a lawyer, the trial judge, Justice E. O. Osinuga ordered that a lawyer from the Legal Aid Council be provided for him. But, instead, some lawyers from the Ogun State’s Department of Citizens’ Rights appeared for him.
At the end of trial, Matthew was convicted and sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment and death, a decision he appealed through a lawyer, Musibau Adetunbi. Adetunbi also appealed a similar case involving Akeem Jimoh.
He faulted the arrangement where the lawyers, who prosecuted and defended the case were all from the Ogun State Ministry of Justice, noting that the Citizens’ Rights Department was an agency of state’s Justice Ministry, supervised by the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice.
He argued that the practice where the same Ministry of Justice, that prosecute criminal cases, is allowed to send lawyers from the chambers of the Attorney General, who are dubbed “public defenders,” to act as the defenders in cases where their colleagues in the ministry are prosecutors, is unlawful.
The Court of Appeal, in its judgment in the appeal marked: CA/I/347/2010 upheld Adetunbi’s argument and held that Matthew was not accorded fair hearing because it was wrong for lawyers from the state’s Justice Ministry to act as prosecutors and defenders. It noted that the Department of Citizens’ Rights was not an independent body.
The appeal court ordered a retrial of Matthews’ case before another judge of the High Court of Ogun State.
In the case of Jimoh (in appeal No: CA/I/31B/2006) the court voided the high court’s judgment, discharged and acquitted him on the grounds that, having spent 11 years in custody, a retrial would be subjecting him to double jeopardy.
Dissatisfied, the Ogun State government headed to the Supreme Court to challenge the Court of Appeal’s decision in Matthew’s case, insisting it acted lawfully in providing lawyers to defend Matthew at the trial court.
Beyond filing a respondent’s brief to counter the Ogun State government’s position, Adetunbi has also filed a cross-appeal, asking the Supreme Court to among others, set aside the lower court’s order for retrial and free his client because Matthew had spent over 12 years in detention already.
The case is likely going to open another face in criminal jurisprudence in Nigeria as it has the tendency of turning the federal and state attorneys general as the prosecutor and the accused counsel simultaneously. It is interesting that the parties concerned have both filed their respective briefs, hence the matter is awaiting date of hearing from the Supreme Court.