National Confab wants plea bargain expunged from judicial system

The National Conference Committee on Law and Judiciary is pushing that the concept of plea bargains in the Nigerian Judicial system should be expunged from the criminal justice system or be reviewed.
Members of the committee opined that there should be maximum punitive measures to persons who run foul of the law.
At its sitting on Wednesday, members focused on this critical area of the country’s legal system during discussion on “Law and Order”.
However, opinions were divided on whether the present status quo should be maintained or expunged totally from the legal system.
Those who canvassed that it should be expunged, noting that the concept favours the rich who always get soft landing after stealing huge amount of money while subjecting an ordinary Nigerian who had stolen a negligible item like a mobile phone or a goat to more years of imprisonment thereby creating an imbalance impression.
Legal luminary and a member of the committee, Mr. Femi Falana, had this to say, “It is not plea bargain that is the problem.
“It is abuse of the use of plea bargain. More importantly, because it is limited and applicable to issues involving the rich and powerful members of the society whereas the ordinary people who run foul of the law are not entitled to such practice. It is a special arrangement for now. It is for the rich to some sort of soft landing and this why the public is totally opposed to it.
“Ordinarily, because of the enormous cost of prosecuting a case, the state or the court would want to feel compelled to temper justice with mercy if an accused person comes forward to say I want change my plea from no guilty to guilty. I want to save the time of the court. I don’t want to waste the resources of the state.
“Any Judge would want to be lenient but the problem in our own system is that when a big guy in town has stolen billions of Naira, he is charged for money laundering by the EFCC. Meanwhile, before you launder the money, you would have stolen it. So, if you committed stealing which attracts 7 years imprisonment? You simply brush that aside and charge with money laundering whose sentence is 2 years.
“Perception of the public out there is that you have manipulated the criminal justice system to favour the rich. In the same environment, a man who has stolen a goat is charged with stealing, he is not entitled to plea bargain and if convicted, he is sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. No society can allow that for two long.
“We have agreed that we cannot afford to throw away the baby and the bath water. Our general position is that the concept of plea bargain would have to be reviewed with a view to ensuring that people are adequately punished when they have been convicted for committing criminal offenses.”
Also speaking, another member of the committee and retired Justice from Anambra State Judiciary chided the system, saying it was now “sentence bargain.
She said: “I support and welcome plea bargain in Nigeria. But in Nigeria presently, we are practicing sentence bargain not charge bargain. I don’t ascribe to expunging it. The problem we have is attitudinal approach to it. The concept of plea bargain should be reviewed.”
In the same vein, retired Justice Abdulahi Mustapha said “It is the abuse that we should abolish. I am not in support of the idea of abolishing plea bargain. It has been in the united states for states.”