Similar provisions are contained in the laws and procedural regulations of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Under these regulations, both courts of appeal are required to appoint lawyers to prosecute or defend an action on behalf of indigent persons. Lawyers who handle pro bono cases for indigent litigants have the right to request a waiver of filing fees. The right of every accused to a fair trial includes the right to be defended by a lawyer of his or her own choosing. However, since indigent persons cannot afford a lawyer of their choice when they are charged with criminal offences, including capital crimes, the Legal Aid Board is required to appoint legal practitioners to defend them. In practice, the quality of such representation has been questioned from time to time. In accordance with the provisions of article 46 (4) (b) of the Constitution, the National Assembly enacted the Legal Aid Board (Amendment) Act 2010 providing for the establishment of a Legal Aid and Access to Justice Fund, under which financial assistance will be provided to the Council on behalf of poor citizens to enable them to assert their rights in court. In other words, the Legal Aid Act was amended to cover all criminal and civil cases involving poor citizens. Since many citizens do not have the economic means to pursue or defend cases in court, the rules of the Supreme Court (civil procedure) of each state have made adequate provision to protect the interests of these persons. Accordingly, a judge has the authority to admit an indigent person to pursue or defend a claim in state or federal court through a proceeding designated in forma pauperis without payment of filing fees or fees. This person must apply to the presiding judge with an affidavit stating that he or she cannot afford to pay for a lawyer.
By writing a letter to the Chief Justice, a penniless plaintiff is seeking to invoke the „correspondence jurisdiction” of the Supreme Court. If the application is well-founded, the presiding judge appoints a lawyer for the applicant. 11 „The Nigerian government is simply not fulfilling its national and international obligations regarding the criminal justice system in Nigeria and must do so seriously and urgently,” van Krgten said. „The conditions we have seen and the stories we have heard from detainees are a national scandal.” Although the right of every person to access justice in Nigeria is constitutional, the quality of achievable justice is determined by its economic means in the dominant peripheral capitalist system. Despite denial of access to justice due to socio-economic factors, the human rights community has ensured that standing in public interest disputes is relaxed and abolished altogether in the application of human rights. The Legal Aid Act and the National Human Rights Commission Act were also amended to require the Government to arrange for free legal services to impoverished citizens involved in civil and criminal proceedings. This warning was made by the late lawyer in June 1986. But because the ruling class ignored the warning, our country has since institutionalized unequal justice to our collective detriment. Victims of legal, political and economic injustice have taken the law into their own hands by taking extrajudicial measures to wrest from society what they believe they deserve. Having lost hope in the unjust legal order that prevails, victims resort to armed robbery, terrorism, kidnapping and other violent crimes.
A number of armed groups have taken separatist measures that can lead to the balkanization and disintegration of the entire country. In many parts of the country, law and order have collapsed, while the State has lost control of the monopoly on the use of force by armed groups, so that kidnappers and terrorists receive a large ransom to free abducted citizens, including children. According to the report, submitted to the media by a senior lecturer at the Nigerian Faculty of Law, Abuja campus, Dr. Esa Onoja, who specializes in litigation and professional ethics, investigations, prosecutions and trials of high-profile corruption cases in Nigeria, the judiciary is imprisoned by traps invented by actors in the legal community to help looters. In particular, he explains that while major anti-corruption agencies obtained more than 1,500 high-profile convictions between 2000 and 2017, they were only able to hand down 10 high-profile convictions between periods. „There are 177 high-profile corruption cases prosecuted by anti-corruption authorities between 2000 and 2017, of which 167 are pending. The total number of convictions is only 10. Of the 10, only three convictions were obtained after a full trial, while seven convictions were based on pleas.
Nevertheless, one of the three convictions was overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of a full trial, while three of the seven convicts were pardoned by the president. Most corruption cases against high-profile defendants delay defendants` tactics and tricks to shorten a fair trial. The cases show the harsh reality of a captive justice system at the mercy of high-level criminals and their train of defence lawyers. Because the NBA condemned corruption without taking concrete steps to stop it, security and anti-corruption authorities recently took the initiative to arrest judges in the middle of the night to the eternal embarrassment of the legal profession. To prevent our judges from being further embarrassed, the NBA and NJC should put in place an integrated mechanism to root out the threat of corruption from the bar and the bank. (Abuja, Nigeria) Amnesty International today revealed the appalling state of Nigeria`s prison system, saying Nigerian prisons are filled with people whose human rights are systematically violated. It is undeniable that access to justice is a fundamental principle of the rule of law recognised in any democratic society. As a result, it was said, „Without access to justice, people are unable to make their voices heard, exercise their rights, challenge discrimination or hold decision-makers accountable.” 6 To address one of the main barriers to access to justice, namely the cost of legal advice and representation, the General Assembly unanimously adopted one in December 2012. As the first international instrument on the right to legal aid, the United Nations Principles and Guidelines set minimum standards for the right to legal aid in criminal justice systems and provide practical guidance to ensure access to effective legal aid services in criminal matters. The banking saga and the failure to bring bank managers to justice underscore the fact that Nigeria`s judicial system is not functioning. Much-discussed issues range from judicial corruption and the lack of independence of the judiciary to delays in the judicial system.
Through the application of unjust laws such as the Law on the Protection of Public Officials, which provides that officials and institutions cannot be prosecuted after 3 months, regardless of the degree of illegality, the laws on pre-action notices, which require aggrieved citizens to inform public institutions for one month before challenging violations of their rights, The Sheriffs` Civil Procedure Act, which requires creditors to obtain a fiat from the Attorney General before initiating any foreclosure proceedings. In order to allow the payment of judicial debts, the judiciary continues to deny access to justice by applying the precedents left by former colonial judges. By denying access to justice through the application of discriminatory laws, our judges have not been guided by the Constitution, which provides for the equality of litigants before the law. It follows from the above that access to justice can be examined from two points of view. Strictly speaking, access to justice means access to justice, while in a broader sense, it means access to political, economic and social justice in a democratic society. I agree with Nlerum Okogbule that „access to justice in general implies access to social and distributive justice. However, it is important to emphasize that these perspectives are not necessarily separate, as the extent to which distributive justice can be achieved in each system is largely determined by the level and effectiveness of social justice in the country. „10 Therefore, a poor citizen seeking justice within the country`s unjust socio-economic system is likely to fall into the chaos of a rather vicious cycle of injustice.