In recent years, our nation has faced the harsh realities of fundamental flaws in our justice system.Our criminal justice system is more dependent on incarceration than rehabilitation; our trial system has lost our public’s confidence and needs reforms. These issues and many more need our attention, our resources, our resolve.We must use the collective strengths of our voices and experience to play a positive role in evaluating and providing recommendations with regard to those issues that impact our legal system and our constitution as was done by the 7th session of the National Assembly in passing the Criminal Justice System Reform Bill..

We must continue to review and make recommendations about our nation’s constitution, and promote initiatives designed to educate the legal community and the public. We must advance the understanding that reforms to our justice system and reforms to our nation’s constitution are not academic theories or philosophical prescriptions, but instead, core necessities.

There is the urgent necessity to modernize our outdated court systems and the bar, more than the bench, must commit to work hard to drive this process.The process of selection of Judges need to be further reformed in a way as to enhance public trust and confidence in the legal system.The NBA must help create an environment where the focus, more than anything and more than ever, will remain on the competence, temperament, and integrity of potential judges.

Equally, along the line of modernization of our court system, the NBA should set up a Task Force on Electronic Filing of Court Documents to put in place the necessary modalities for ensuring universal mandatory e-filing. Indeed, e-filing not only helps ensure uniformity in the practice of law for attorneys practising in different courts across the country, it also allows Appellate Courts to review documents already on file, and maximizes time and cost saving benefits by reducing the number of documents that would need to be filed and printed.

Further Criminal Justice Reform.
Our Bar association, made up of prosecutors and defenders, public and private attorneys, must work to ensure that our voice embodies balance in continued reforms that ensure our criminal justice system effectively and fairly addresses those who break the law and lets our law enforcement officials do their jobs with dignity and respect.NBA must evolve and introduce comprehensive initiatives intended to make our criminal justice system more fair and efficient in the hope that we can significantly reduce the tragedy of wrongful conviction.

Again, in line with global best practice standard, the Nigerian Bar must be at the forefront of the efforts to require video recording of interrogations as a way to help improve the criminal justice system. The NBA can work with the office of the Attorney General of the Federation as well as the leadership of the National Assembly in ensuring adequate budgetary provision to guarantee funding for recording equipment as part of the association’s efforts at promoting the goal of mandatory recording of custodial interrogations.NBA must equally support reforms in the use of solitary confinement in our prisons and detention centres by advocating restrictions on its use, and the adoption of stringent criteria for its implementation and duration.