INTRODUCTION
The project
is sponsored by the NETWORK OF UNIVERSITY LEGAL AID INSTITUTIONS (NULAI)
together with the OPEN SOCIETY INNOVATIVE OF WEST AFRICA (OSIWA) to facilitate
access to justice to PRISON PRE-TRIAL DETAINEES.
The project
is to be done within the span of one year and the target of the law clinic is
towards 50 detainees with less serious offences and who do not have legal
representation across the OKE-KURA and MANDALA prisons.
Participants
of the projects sprung into action at the beginning of the year by having
workshops where we were made abreast with the rudiments and everything we are
to know about the project. Similarly we were trained on certain important
things that are very necessary and fundamental to carrying out the project such
as how to draft documents, lessons on how to conduct an interview, general
conduct during and after advocacy visits to the different stakeholders on one
hand and the conduct during prison visitation.
Upon request
by the law clinic, advocacy visits were paid to various stakeholders to
intimate them about the project and its objectives and to also seek for their
support in carrying on with the project. Similarly, visitations were paid to
the prisons, detainees were interviewed, records were taken and the cases that
fall within the scope of the project were taken up by the clinic.
MY EXPERIENCE
A lot has
been experienced, but one significant experience I got in the course of this
project happened on a particular visit to mandala prison. According to the
detainee I interviewed, he was charged with a less serious offence, and on the
day of arraignment, an unknown lawyer applied for his bail. The bail was
granted on a very liberal term but could not be perfected due to the fact that
there was none of his family member present in court, to stand has surety as
what was requested was only a reliable and respectable family member. In fact, nobody has ever showed up since he
was arrested and has being in police custody. The simple fact I derived from
this is that apart from the nature of the criminal justice system, the attitude
of the accused person’s family sometimes also determines the outcome of his
case and what eventually becomes of him.
WHAT WAS LEARNT
During the
course of this project, I have learnt a lot of things among which are;
●
How to draft a bail application
●
How to conduct an interview generally
●
And specifically, the necessary information required while
interviewing a detainee
●
I have also learnt how to write summary of cases and how to write
a report.
HOW I FEEL BEING PART OF THE PROJECT
Being part
of this project is something that I will forever be happy about because it has
served as an eye-opener to certain things happening in the world, and outside
the classroom, it has taught me a lot about the legal profession.
HOW THE EXPERIENCE CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE
The
experiences I got from being part of this project has changed my perspective in
different ways, one is that which I wrote above in the aspect of “my
experience”. Another change of perspective that has occurred to me is that the
state of the detainees and prisoners generally, as regards appearance, labour,
feeding and interaction with one another, is not as bad as the society thinks
it is.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
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