By
Daniel Oyeniyi
Response:
“What cultivated the establishment of the Juvenile justice center in my mind was a case we did. The boy was 10- year-old when he committed the crime of man’s slaughter. He wanted to threaten the woman he had a disagreement with, with the hunting gun of his grandfather, unfortunately the gun had already been loaded, so when he pulled the trigger the bullet came out and killed the woman”, said a legal practitioner of 20 years at the bar and a former Lecturer of Crescent University, Barr. Abdulsalam Tolani.
Barr. Abdulsalam said he had to represent the 10-year-old accuse, because he felt guilty when he saw a boy that should be in the classroom in the court charged for man’s slaughter.
Barr. Abdulsalam added that Children are challenged socially and psychologically and many of these children are bitter fruit of broken home, for example, when we go to borstal training institution in Abeokuta, we have children who committed various crimes that adults also commit like man slaughter, robbery, rape, stealing and many more and in all Jurisprudence and all jurisdictions they are innocent.
Juvenile justice center was established in 2010 for the purpose of rendering pro bono services to children in borstal training institutions across Nigeria by the secretary of the body, Barr. Abdulsalam after getting support from colleagues.
Evidence:
In a single year, the Juvenile justice center had nothing less than 40 criminal cases across Lagos state, Ogun state and Oyo state according to the legal practitioner and a former Lecturer at Crescent University, Abeokuta.
The free legal service rendered by Juvenile justice center had been beneficiary to lot of children since its establishment in the year 2010, some of them testified to the magnanimous work of JJC.
Limitation:
Education is the first challenges faced by Juvenile justice center, borstal training institution is a rehabilitation center and not for condemnation, it is a place to teach the children vocation they even do examination like WAEC, NECO and JAMB, people see the place as a home for disobedience children but not all these children are disobedient and there are three types of children in borstal training institution, according to Barr. Abdulsalam.
In addition, based on the interview with Barr. Abdulsalam, it was discovered that the economic problem of the country is a challenge to the rendering of pro bono services because people are now more concerned with cases that will bring them money than the ones that will not give them returns.
Barr. Abdulsalam made it known that part of the challenges faced by Juvenile justice center is the issue of the laws regulating borstal act, because most of this laws are old outdated laws, for example, even a pay man knows that one’s you are eighteen, you are an adult but when you look at the borstal training institution act, you will see 21 year old as the statutory inmate age of borstal, the legal statutory framework is not up to the current relatives in our society.
Insight:
Most of the laws that are regulating the Juvenile criminal System are outdated in content and in context, so they need reformation as the litigation provides an incentive to reform policies and practices of juvenile justice systems, according to the National Academic Press.
According to the secretary of the body of the Juvenile justice center, he said the government should go into corporate partnership with private sectors in executing these policies because the private sectors will be working for the bigger picture of rendering pro bono services to less privileged children.
Barr. Abdulsalam said the government should add the number of pro bono services a lawyer had rendered as one of the qualities to become a SAN as it will help in solving the great problem that the Juvenile justice center is facing in terms of lack of knowledge of the existence of borstal training institutions among legal practitioners.
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