CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Ogunkunle, Sarah |
|---|---|
| Title | Fight For Justice: Challenges To The Approaches Of Law Clinics In Pretrial Justice In Nigeria |
| Summary | Pretrial Justice encompasses pretrial detention, early access to legal assistance, rights of pretrial detainees, and a fair pretrial system. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, there are human rights violations observed within the pretrial system. For instance, pretrial detention is an indispensable tool within the pretrial system that allows the temporary restriction of the personal liberty of arrested persons by either the investigating authority or the court. However, the application of pretrial detention has been susceptible to abuses and arbitrary use, thereby subjecting pretrial detainees to several human rights violations like torture, unfair trial, no access to justice, no legal representation, etc. Law clinics, originally conceived to provide practical training to law students, have proven instrumental in promoting pretrial justice by promoting the protection of pretrial detainees’ rights to counsel, fair trial, personal liberty, and overall access to justice. Since its inception in 2004, Law Clinics in Nigeria have adopted several approaches to promote the protection of the rights of pretrial detainees. While they have achieved remarkable success in these approaches, thereby attaining recognition as non-state legal aid providers among justice actors in Nigeria such as the Legal Aid Council, Nigerian Bar Association, Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and the Correctional Services, these successes do not come without strong challenges. The main questions this research addresses are: What are the approaches of the law clinics in promoting pretrial justice and what challenges do the law clinics face in this regard? This research adopts a qualitative approach that extends existing literature addressing the approaches and challenges of law clinics by Sekinat Adelakun, Ernest Ojukwu et al, and Odi Lagi et al, and provides up-to-date insights through interviews with law clinic students and law clinic coordinators/staff, and with the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions, which is the network/body of all law clinics in Nigeria. The focus on recent approaches and challenges of the law clinic provides up-to-date insight on the data from the literature which is at least 5 years old. To answer the question, this research hinges on Open Society's definition to elucidate pretrial justice, outlines the rights of pretrial detainees, and reviews the flaws in Nigeria’s pretrial system. Additionally, it describes what law clinics are, their operations, their approaches to promoting pretrial justice, and their challenges. The findings of this research show that law clinics adopt approaches such as pro bono services/legal aid, advocacy, mentorship, and collaboration in promoting pretrial justice. Furthermore, the findings identify challenges, highlighting prison breaks security and ethical dilemmas. |
| Supervisor | Juliana Cesario Alvim Gomes |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/ogunkunle_sarah.pdf |
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