The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) says it will be inaugurating two of its ‘Access to Justice projects – the Court Administration and Case Management, to promote efficiency in Nigerian justice system.
Speaking in Abuja, Mr Kenechukwu Agwu, the Senior Programme Manager, Access to Justice, PPDC, said the aim of the project was to improve the judiciary system.
“Recently in August, we secured the second project which is the phase II of Reforming Pre-Trial Detention in Nigeria Project.
”The project aimed at supporting the government of Nigeria to essentially reform the way ‘Pre-Trial Detention’ is being processed in the country.
“At the moment we have ranges between 65 and 80 per cent inmates population being people who are awaiting trial or who we call Pre-Trial detainees,” Agwu said.
According to him, these set of people have been in detention for lengthy number of years, awaiting trail not even knowing whether they will be found guilty or innocent.
He further explained that the three major areas of the second phase of the project aimed at supporting the Chief Justice of the various states in looking at the processes and system that would improve access to justice.
He said the centre would provide legal services to 1,750 detainees across the five states it is working on the projects.
Agwu listed the states to include, Adamawa, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), saying that with time the projects would be extended to all the 36 states of the federation.
“We are also looking at supporting the Nigerian Correctional Service; the correction has developed a system known as CIMS – Correction Information Management System, which they used and has shown great potential in what it can do.
“For instance, when we have the people breakout from Kuje correctional service, it was information from the database of CIMS that they were able to circulate the names, pictures, and fingerprints of the detainees who had escaped.
”So we will be supporting them to improve on the system and also see how many other more modules, including the legal representation.
“Also we are going to ensure that there is coordination among the actors in the space; there are a lot of agencies who are supposed to be responsible for these,” he added.
He said that on Nov. 7, the PPDC would be inaugurating the Phase II of its projects parley aimed at bringing together citizens and stakeholders to discuss the access to justice situation in Nigeria.
Agwu said the initiative was designed to support the development and deployment of improved timely, effective, and transparent Court Administration and Case Management Systems (CACMS) in Nigeria’s judiciary.
It also covers other related law enforcement and justice institutions.
