From Abba Sarki,Kano
In what appears to be a departure from the past practice in criminal proceedings, women are now eligible to stand as surety to secure bail for defendants in law courts or suspects in police custody.
Lawyers from the Nigeria Legal Aid Council Abashiyya Maiwada and Hawwa Muhammad highlighted some of the provisions of law to students of Government Senior Islamic Secondary school Rano during a legal outreach of organised by Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative as part of efforts to promote community awareness of the Kano State Administration of Criminal Justice Law 2019.
The law was passed and assented in 2019 to among other things modernise and streamline criminal Justice administration in Kano.
Maiwada said sections 30-33 which provided clear guidelines on how bail can be granted in courts, explicitly allow women to sign bail bonds or stand as surety thereby addressing past discrimination with no such provision in Criminal Penal Code (CPC operational in Northern states previously).
She said ” Sections 6,9-10 place emphasis on humane treatment of suspects during arrest informing the suspect of the reason for his arrest and recording the same in a central register with the aim of tracking and preventing unlawful detention.”
Hawwa Muhammad also told the students at the sensitisation programme facilitated by Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative that civil cases are private cases that do not require involvement of the police who only have powers to investigate criminal cases prosecution of which lie with ministry of Justice since the offence is against the state and not individuals.
” Torture to obtain confessional statement in the course of investigation is prohibited under ACJL and therefore statement of suspect should be obtained in the presence of his lawyer or representative,” said Muhammad.
Amina Suleiman, the programme officer, Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative, said the sensitisation is aiming to familiarise 250 female students with the provisions of the law to empower them to know their legal rights and seek legal redress when confronted with offences like rape, assault ,theft , murder or manslaughter.
A short film was played to the admiration of the students defecting overzealous Policemen breaking into the residence of Married woman to arrest her underage son without warrant.The woman would be denied bail on account of being a woman but was asked to offer bribe instead.
The Principal of the school Maimuna Abdullahi Garko said the sensitisation will go a long way to help the students appreciate basic legal rights capable of shielding them from abuse and violation.
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