ADR in Nigeria’s Criminal Justice System

Abstract

The mere mention of the phrase “Alternative Dispute resolution in Criminal Justice System” must be very surprising for a lot of people because it necessarily evokes a certain sentiment of doubt particularly in this age and the socio-political milieu in which we find ourselves, where violent crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping and banditry have assumed dimensions hitherto unknown and un-experienced in this clime. It would appear unreasonable for anybody, let alone a Judge of the High Court to be speaking about alternative dispute resolution in criminal jurisprudence when he should be concerned with sentencing criminals to jail and keeping them away for public safety and peace. How can anyone begin to conjure negotiation or mediation with a kidnapper or a murderer or an armed robber or a burglar? It simply does not tally. However, the truth is that behind the façade of legal impossibility, ADR is being used on a daily basis for the resolution of these disputes and or conflicts. Another truth is that the class of the very serious criminal offences which conjure up in our minds doubts as to the applicability of ADR to criminal disputes constitute by far a minority of the number of criminal cases which full our court dockets on a daily basis. We have therefore set out in this paper to examine and find out whether there is a legal basis and or justification for the use of ADR in criminal justice in the face of allegations and common belief, even among lawyers, that ADR does not apply to criminal disputes. We shall also attempt to answer the question, should ADR apply to felonies or serious crimes?