Understanding The 7 Keys To Strengthening Nigeria's Criminal Justice System (Part 1)

                               

The latest report by the World Justice Project for 2020 showed that Nigeria is 108 out of 128 in the global ranking index on the rule of law. Nigeria is on the same level with Iran and Turkey and only ranks better than countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Guinea

while countries like Namibia, Rwanda and South Africa have higher scores than Nigeria. In the actual sense of the report, Nigeria had reclining down the scale on the rule of law since 2016 to date.

In her book Forensic Science under seige, Kelly M. Pyrek writes that, “To the prosecutor, forensic science is the apparatus used to inculpate a defendant. To the defense attorney, forensic science is the adversary to whom a fatal blow must be struck. To the judge, forensic science is the scale on which guilt or innocence is weighted. To jurors, forensic science is a critical tool for decision making. To members of the law enforcement community, forensic science is the vehicle through which leads and theories are confirmed”.

The time to adopt forensic practices within the modus operandi of law enforcement and security investigations in Nigeria, is long overdue. Anything short of deploying forensic protocols during criminal and civil investigations as standard procedure will defeat the purpose for which forensic science exists.

A core factor for measuring how strong a criminal Justice system is in its ability to remain unchanged in the face of negative bias and maintain strict neutrality regardless of the political leadership of the State.

Can that be said of the Nigerian Justice system?

Forensic science exists to help the Bar and Bench reach decisions on who is guilty or innocent, what is truth or not. Therefore, forensic science is a viable vehicle for justice to be served. Before forensics gained popularity in the 1980s, many homicide cases went cold and perpetrators remained anonymous without being apprehended. That changed with the deployment of DNA forensics.

This article focuses on highlighting fundamental keys necessary for a Nigerian Criminal Justice System that is stronger, able to compete with contemporary judicial institutions and not still trying to escape the judicial morass of the 20th century.

 

And the first key is....

 

1. Acceptance

This is the first key to having a forensic compliant criminal Justice system. And, the benefits of this kind of criminal justice reform far outweigh self-conflicting interests in a world that values peace and development. This should begin from the government at the top to the populace at the bottom.

And why is that?

Others refer to it as the political will.

A forensics policy that the government, especially the executive embraces would have less barrier of implementation at the grassroots.

The legislative should be more inclined to accepting a forensic science bill sponsored by the executive given the importance attached to it.

Other stakeholders such as the civil society, judiciary, and professional bodies should welcome the idea rather than feel threatened by it.

The cardinal key to a fully forensic compliant criminal Justice system is through the executive –the will of the government to pursue impartial judicial reforms that would stand the tests of time. The top has to embrace the idea, brood over it and decide it is a legacy worth leaving to create a justice system without sacred cows.

 

2. The Advocacy

Pakistani female activist Malala Yousafzai once said that "when the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful". This is the woman who was shot at on the bus to school as a teenage because of her consistent advocacy for girl-child education in Pakistan.

One benefit of consistent advocacy is, it gives clarity to complex issues. It is only on the platform of consistent advocacy that the underlying uncertainties of forensic science can be understood by stakeholders.

The onus lies then on members of the Nigerian forensic community on adequate sensitization of both policy makers and the public. It is a responsibility that has to be accepted.

Without contradicting the cardinal role of acceptance of forensics, it will take sustained strategic advocacy if the expected acceptance of forensics is to be achieved by those who with high stakes on the matter.

The populace must be aware of the role forensic investigation can play in obtaining justice as well as what is expected of individuals in specific circumstances of crime scene and evidence management.

The judges, prosecutors, defense counsels and other associated judicial stakeholders need to understand the limits of forensic methods used during litigations in the courts.

Civil societies, the mainstream media  and related advocacy groups need first to comprehend the impact  forensics has on their campaign for accountability, good governance, rule of law, anti-corruption and such like, in matters of the state. It is only after this realization that clarity of purpose for a forensic compliant justice system can gain traction.

Forensic experts of different specialties have to have a united front in the advocacy for forensics in Nigeria.   Forensic science is a broad field with many branches of specialism. Each specialized subfield is a micro niche representation of a particular scientific discipline. For instance, digital forensics is a subfield of forensics. And, it's an applied form of computer science in matters of the law.

Therefore, the body of forensic experts under digital forensics need to have an alliance with other professional forensic subgroups in order to dispel the notion of disunity among the forensic science community and the public. If the goal of successfully ‘selling forensics inclusion' to the government is to fly, the united front among every existing professional forensic body in Nigeria has to be consummated.

A united forensic advocacy will be noticed. A divisive forensic advocacy will be much more visible.

The Nigerian forensic community is the number one sales rep for forensic advocacy. It's in our hands to make that topnotch pitch sale that will trigger the much anticipated discussion on a national forensic bill to be signed into law, and receive appropriation in the next national budget, a possibility.

 

3. The Laws and Regulation

At a forensic symposium in 2018, one of the facilitators, a lawyer remarked that lawyers have a legally backed professional body that holds every legal practitioner accountable. But who holds the forensic practitioner accountable? Which legal body certifies their proficiency and regulates their practice within the country?

Besides that, is there a regulation that ensures compliance to forensic protocols during ‘normal’ criminal investigations in the country? How many national forensic laboratories can investigators send evidential materials to for forensic analysis and are there adequate independent laboratories that can be referenced to for independent forensic analysis regardless of the forensic discipline? Or at least, the major ones such as DNA, Fingerprinting, ballistics and Digital forensics?

These are valid questions pressing for actionable answers.

This article takes into consideration the efforts of some notable individuals and groups that have been most vocal in the advocacy for forensic inclusion and compliance within the Nigerian Justice system. Presently, the Computer Forensic Institute of Nigeria (CFIN) trains and certifies those willing to be Digital Forensic Examiners in Nigeria.

 The Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals in Nigeria (CIFIPN) is behind a bill right now at the Nigerian  President’s Desk awaiting his signature which would give those practicing forensics in fields like fingerprinting and questioned documents analysis, a legal umbrella to operate without contending with disputes on the legality of their practice.

Regarding the need for forensic laws in the country, a school of thought have argued that there is no need for new laws since the Evidence Act 2011 and other associated Acts have expressed acceptance of the admissibility of forensic evidence. The problem with that is, does any article of any law provides for the regulation of forensic practice among forensic experts or validation of the forensic methods to be used in the administration of justice?

If the answer to the above questions is no, don't you think that wrongful convictions and acquittals could result from lack of regulation of the practice and validation of the science associated with the forensic techniques to be used?

 According to the Innocence Project in the United States, the most common reason for wrongful convictions is false eyewitness identification. And statistics has it that unreliable forensic evidence accounted for 45%  of the Innocence Project cases. This is caused by erroneous application and misrepresentation of forensic science by ‘forensic experts’ who didn’t know the limits of forensic methods they claim to be infallible. The result is wrongful convictions from forensic methods whose science haven’t been properly validated by the scientific community.

 

Read: Enhancing Nigeria’s Forensic Development: What it Takes

 

In 2019, American Jurist and legal scholar, Judge Harry T. Edwards during his remarks at the Innocence Network Annual Conference said that the United States of America (USA) still needed a national, independent agency to oversee forensic research and practices. As co-chair of the committee that studied the American Forensic Community for 26 months, he remarked that that was the most important recommendation of that committee.

This is the reason why we have to get it right from beginning. We need the laws that will indicate clearly regulation of practice and compel scientific validation of techniques to be used. No one should be convicted based on unreliable and invalidated forensic evidence. No one deserves that.

 

4. The Laboratories

It would be a fallacy to say that there are no forensic labs in Nigeria. Some federal law enforcement agencies have forensic labs that serve mostly the agencies’ purposes only. The Nigerian Police, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), have crime labs with varying capabilities. At the State level, the Lagos state government had built a DNA crime laboratory (that was recently torched) to cater for cases involving homicide, gender-based violence and disasters involving unidentified bodies.

Presently, there is no standard forensic lab serving the Federal Ministry of Justice.

With the support of international aid organizations, Sexual Abuse Referral Centers (SARCs) are being setup across some states of the federation to cater for victims of sexual abuse. These centers are middle-level intervention units equipped with counselors, medical teams, lawyers and sexual testing kits which transfer cases and evidence to prosecutors for prosecution.

 

 But these forensic capabilities are inadequate.

There is need for a national forensic laboratory with annexes across the six geopolitical zones across the country. This proposed National Forensic Laboratory service should be adequately staffed with highly proficient forensic experts, fully stocked with state-of-the-art equipment for testing and forensic analyses and most importantly –be consistently accredited according to international best practices and standards.

On the mode of operations of this laboratory, a leaf can be borrowed from the latest Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) forensic laboratory Handbook of Forensic Services 2019, on operations and how samples sent to it for analyses can be handled. For instance, the FBI crime lab rejects evidential materials that have been tampered with, and they don’t charge for analyses sent from federal law enforcement agencies. They also provide expert witnessing services on samples that they have analyzed for clients without cost.

A forensic lab may be setup for a particular purpose such as for Questioned Document Analysis only. What the Nigerian justice system needs is an adequately equipped multi-disciplinary crime lab that can effectively serve both volume and serious crimes.

The Nigerian States also need to follow the lead of the Lagos state government by investing on forensic capabilities of their judicial systems to facilitate the timely dispensation of justice.

As stated earlier, independent forensic service providers are most needed to handle independent analyses. Impartiality and declaration of conflict of interest in cases by forensic experts are indicators of a strong and unbiased justice system. Checks and balances by regulators have to be continuous across every facet of the forensic service delivery regardless of whether the provider is government-owned or private.

With this arrangement in place, no single forensic science provider would claim monopoly of any process, and that would reduce the potential for abuse of the system, minimize corrupt practices, and reveal weaknesses of unreliable forensic methods used in the system but increase confidence in the forensic service delivery.

Nigeria need a mix of adequately equipped and up-to-standard federal, state and independent forensic laboratories to cater fully, the demands on the criminal justice system.