(WATCH VIDEO) ABIA: What We Are Doing To Reduce Number Of Persons On Awaiting Trial List – Abia AG, Uwanna
(WATCH VIDEO) ABIA: What We Are Doing To Reduce Number Of Persons On Awaiting Trial List – Abia AG, Uwanna
The Abia state Attorney General cum Commissioner for Justice, Ikechukwu Uwanna, has frowned at the huge number of accused persons on awaiting trial and languishing in prison custody in the state.
The Commissioner in an exclusive interaction with ALL FACTS NEWSPAPER (AFNEWS), noted that the judiciary is meant to uphold justice by prosecuting accused persons and not leaving them to perish on awaiting trial list without prosecution and not knowing their fate.
“We are not ministry of injustice; if there’s a case pending in court, where we don’t have sufficient evidence to prosecute, we shouldn’t leave it in court” the Commissioner stated.
Uwanna revealed that since he came into office, he discovered that 30 to 40% of files in the register of the ministry of Justice are cases of people on awaiting trial due to either lack of evidence, non-compliance of witnesses, or complainants, among others.
The Commissioner added that he has directed for all files to be reviewed and cases where there are insufficient evidence or compliance to earn conviction, should be discontinued.
Uwanna maintained that this move will help unclog the court dockets and will also boost administration of justice system.
“We have had to review the files we have in our dockets and we realised that we have a lot of files that don’t need to be in our dockets; cases where the witnesses are not willing to testify; cases where the complainants are not interested in the case and i’ve given a directive that if we have such cases, they should be discontinued, we should withdraw from those cases, those cases are clogging the court’s dockets, the administration of justice process and we think that if we can get those cases out of our system and concentrate on the ones that we have sufficient facts and evidence that will earn us conviction, that will help the system.
“Those cases form about 30 to 40% of cases we have in the ministry. We are doing a review of the files now and after the vacation that we have, from early September, we will start seeing that some of these cases will drop off the system” the Commissioner for Justice assured.
WATCH VIDEO:
