Restoration and Legal Care for Victims of Crimes Under the Nigerian Criminal Jurisprudence
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Date
2022-06-22
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Faculty of Law, Kwara State University, Malete
Abstract
It is trite law that the ultimate goal of the administration of criminal system is to do justice and provide fairness to the offenders, victims and the larger society even though crimeis deemed to be an offence against the society. This presumption brought one of the greatest loopholes in our criminal justice system in Nigeria. The United Nations Declaration recognises four major ingredients of the rights of victims of Crimes i.e. access to justice and fairness, restitution, compensation and assistance. This, how far is our laws and those saddled with responsibility of administration of criminal justice in Nigeria conform to the norm of international standard set out by the U.N. Declarationin order to help the victims to manage the material aspect of their psychological trauma and to show that society has not abandoned them. To this end, this paper, while adopting analytical research methodology, examines the administration of the criminal justice system in Nigeria whether the existing laws on compensation and restitution orders are satisfactory or adequate in our present day society. Is there any legal care in existence that ensures enforcement of victims rights when a court of competent jurisdiction ordered that the victims should be compensated for injuries or damages as a result of commission of crimes by the offender. The paper revealed that some victims were neglected in some instances owing to the fact that the offence is committed against the state and suggests way forward in order to ensure that right of victims of crimes are preserved and enforced in Nigeria
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KWASULJ (2022) 3 (1)