By: Abubakar Ismail Kankara
Following the establishment of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law Kano 2019, which supports citizens’ rights and bars authorities from illegal apprehension, detention, and other abuses of the law, the Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative, with support from the Rule of Law and Anti-corruption Program (ROLAC) and the European Union, organised a two-day sensitisation for citizens in Kano State.
The two-day advocacy and awareness campaign was held in Wudil and Bichi local government areas of Kano state to sensitise citizens, mostly women and aged men from urban and rural communities. The mission was to protect citizens’ rights and inform them of the provisions of the law, which the Kano state government has already assented to.
In an interview, Bar Amina Sulaiman, the senior legal empowerment officer of the Isa Wali empowerment initiative, noted that the organisation is currently implementing its project “Justice for All,” promoting community awareness of the provisions for administering criminal justice law in Kano State.
Sulaiman noted that IWEI aims to raise awareness about the key innovations of the law by informing a larger group of people from across Kano State.
According to her, many citizens have suffered from being ignorant of the law, which results in a potential risk to their freedom and rights as citizens; hence, the need for advocacy to create awareness for citizens to become conversant with the key innovations of the administration of the criminal justice law to improve the applications of the law significantly.
“The law has several key innovations, but our primary focus or key highlights during this awareness are areas which outline women can stand bail; previously, this was not explicitly spelt out or pointed out, but this law brought it out and clearly stated that an adult woman can stand for bail.
Secondly, the law also prohibited arrest in lieu; arrest in lieu means “arresting someone in place of another,” where a person commits a crime and authorities arrest another person by proxy.
We also highlight the key position of the innovations, especially on the issue of arresting and detaining someone for more than 48 hours. The law indicates that a person must be tried in court and cannot be detained for more than 48 hours.
However, we understand that several rights have been breached and such issues are alarming, hence the reason for training and deploying paralegals across some local governments in the state.
The paralegals are deployed within their host communities by our organisation. For they “the paralegals” are saddled with a responsibility that centres around data collection, community engagement, and identifying cases that are within our thematic areas.
Although sometimes we receive outside our thematic areas or those cases we cannot handle, we refer them to legal aid for a better service. She added.
Beneficiaries account.
from the Bichi local government recounts how her son was a victim of arrest, in lieu of which she was denied the opportunity to bail the child. According to her, if such information had been known to her earlier, she should have informed the police about the provisions of the law.
Henceforth, I will ensure to report any violations of the law and inform the larger society of the provisions of the administrations for criminal justice law. Nafisat added
Like Nafisat, Muktar Murtala from Wudil local government discloses that the lectures from the resource person, Bar Amina, have significantly impacted his life, as hes now informed about the provisions of the.
From now on, I will ensure to also pass this message to others and, as well, approach police constructively whenever I see otherwise. Mukatarl continued.
According to Mukatar, I am so excited to know that we are having a paralegal within our community as employed and trained by the Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative. We are on the safe side that, whenever we see otherwise, we will rush to inform them for better and more efficient legal support.
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