Trial-Within-Trial As A Road Block To Speedy Adjudication Of Criminal Trial In Nigeria

INTRODUCTION

No doubt, objections raised to the admissibility of confessional statements pose one of the greatest challenges to criminal trials as it slows down the pace of the proceedings when there is a trial within trial. It is for this reason that Section 9 (3) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Lagos State 2011 and Sections 17(2) and 15(4) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 have been put in place to ensure that the Police and other agencies does not obtain confessional statements from suspects with oppression or duress.

The law is well settled that where the voluntariness of a confessional statement is challenged during trial, the trial Court is duty bound to conduct a trial-within-trial to determine the voluntariness or otherwise of the confessional statement. This law has been followed and applied by Nigeria Courts for decades. However, the inundated delays caused by trial-within-trial means that this practice has become outdated and requires some filtering.

The article will critically examine the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 (ACJA), the six tests of confessional Statement laid down by the English Court in R v. Sykes and the recent pronouncements of the Supreme Court in FRN V. Akaeze¹ and FRN V. Nnajiofor² which shows that the current trial-within–trial system has become a waste of precious judicial time, and suggests a path to ensure the quick and efficient dispensation of justice.

SIX TESTS OF VOLUNTARY CONFESSIONAL STATEMENTS

The above tests stemmed from the decision of the English Court in R v. Sykes³ where the Court expounded on what would amount to a voluntary, direct and cogent confessional statement for the purpose of admissibility. The Court prescribed these six (6) cumulative tests as the guiding principle judges should follow when confronted with confessional statements. In determining whether to admit a confessional statement or not, judges have been enjoined to ask the following questions?

1. Is there anything outside the confession which shows that it may be true?
2. Is it corroborated?
3. Are the relevant statements of fact made in it true as far as can be tested?
4. Was the accused the one who had the opportunity to commit the offence?
5. Is the confession possible?
6. Is it consistent with other facts which have been ascertained?

The above questions or tests were first adopted by the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Dawa v. The State⁴ In Dawa v. The State, the Supreme Court while quoting with approval the decision in R v. Sykes held that a trial judge whilst considering the voluntariness of a confessional statement must ask himself the six questions elegantly crafted in R v. Sykes before convicting the defendant based on his or her confessional statement. The Supreme Court further stated that where the confessional statement passes these tests satisfactorily, a conviction founded on it is invariably upheld. However, the Court noted that if the confessional statement fails to pass the tests, no conviction should be found on it, and if any is found on it, on appeal, such conviction will be set aside.

It must be constantly borne in mind that these six tests are cumulative. That is to say, the Court must consider the entire questions before arriving at the conclusion that the confessional statement was voluntary, direct and cogent.

A careful examination of the six tests above patently reveals that if judges adhere strictly to them in determining whether confessional statements were voluntarily made or not, conducting a trial-within-trial becomes a mere waste of precious judicial time.

Again, if a judge is enjoined to always take into consideration these 6 tests, the implication is that whether a confession was made voluntarily or not can be resolved during the evaluation of the entire evidence adduced by the prosecution and the defence at the time of writing his judgment without resorting to trial-within-trial which sometimes hinders or delays administration of criminal justice.

Apart from this, admissibility of confessional statements poses no danger to the administration of criminal justice. Judges can admit a piece of evidence and attach little or no weight to it. It is observed that what is central to confessional statements is not admissibility of it but the quantum of weight the Court will attach to it. If judges can discard the use of trial-within-trial when the issue of involuntariness of confession arises, and instead adopt the approach of admitting the confessional statement while determining the level of weight to attach to it after asking themselves the six questions at the stage of evaluation of evidence, then trial-within-trial becomes a mere cosmetic mimicry.

FRN V. AKAEZE AND FRN V. NNAJIOFOR

In FRN v. Akaeze⁵ the Supreme Court considered whether compliance with the provisions of sections 15(4) and 17(2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act by law enforcement agencies is mandatory or not. For clarity purposes, sections 15 (4), 17 (1) & (2) of the ACJA provide as follows:

In Akaeze, the Supreme Court noted that sections 15(4) and 17(2) of the ACJA have taken the guarantee of the voluntariness of a confession beyond the Judges Rules that Courts apply permissively and the police in-house procedures which consist only of assurances by the same investigating and prosecuting officers that they complied with the Judges Rules and their in-house procedures in obtaining the confession of an arrested suspect. The experience is that in most cases, the arrested suspects disagree with these assurances, contending that the confessions were made under duress in various forms such as torture, intimidation, refusal to grant bail unless a statement or confession was made resulting in time-consuming trials-within-trials to determine if the confession was voluntary.

The whole process was a contentious and uncertain landscape. To establish more clear cut, certain, and easily verifiable criteria, sections 15(4) and 17(2) ACJA prescribe that such confessions be video recorded and be taken in the presence of independent persons such as a legal practitioner of the suspect's choice, officer of the Legal Aid Counsel, officer of a Civil Society Organization, a Justice of the Peace or any other person of the suspect's choice. In addition to the mandatory nature of those provisions, S.3 of the ACJA 2015 mandatorily requires that the suspect be arrested, investigated and tried in accordance with the ACJA.

The Apex Court went further to hold that the word "may" as used in sections 15(4), 17(1) & (2) of the Act impose mandatory obligation on the prosecution. The Supreme Court took the bold position that the general principle of interpretation is that the use of the word "may" connotes permissive action. However, it has been established by a long line of decided cases that the Courts would interpret the word "may" as mandatory wherever it is used to impose a duty upon a public functionary to be carried out in a particular form or way for the benefit of a private citizen.

Therefore, the conclusion that can be drawn from the above authoritative pronouncement of the Supreme Court is that compliance with sections 15(4) & 17(1) (2) of ACJA is mandatory and for a confessional statement to be received or admitted in evidence, it must be shown that the investigating authorities have complied with the provisions of sections 15(4) & 17(1-2) of the ACJA including other similar provisions in the Administration of Criminal Justice Laws of various States in Nigeria.

In the similar case of FRN v. Nnajiofor⁶, the Supreme Court also reiterated its position in respect of the mandatory nature of sections 15(4) and 17 (1) & (2) of the ACJA. In that case, the Supreme Court was of the firm view that the essence of the requirement for electronic recording of extrajudicial statements such as confessional statements which must be taken in the presence of a legal practitioner of the suspect's choice as stipulated in Sections 15(4) and 17(2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 is to give credibility to the course of criminal investigation, so as to obviate recurrent objections as to the voluntariness of confessional statements by the defendant.

Furthermore, the Apex Court categorically stated that compliance with the provisions of sections 15(4), 17(1) & (2) of the ACJA gives credence to the voluntariness of confessional statements and non-compliance renders confessional statements inadmissible.

CONCLUSION

In view of the laudable provisions of the Administration of the Criminal Justice Act/Laws, the procedures that must be followed in respect of the admissibility of confessional statements which have been overwhelmingly endorsed by the Supreme Court as mandatory in Akaeze and Nnajiofor, and the 6 tests of a voluntary confession as eminently enunciated in R v. Sykes, it is the author's submission that the continued recourse to trial within trial by Nigerian Courts pose a serious threat to speedy trials in Nigeria.

Therefore, this author opines that once it is shown that the prosecution has complied with the provisions of the ACJA, the Court should dispense with trial within trial after asking itself the six questions beautifully laid down in R v. Sykes. This will ensure that the justice dispensation is fair, equitable and efficient, in the interest of all parties involved in the process.

Footnotes

1. (2024) LPELR-62190(SC)

2. (2024) LPELR-62599(SC)

3. ibid

4. (1980) 8-11 SC (PT. 236)

5. ibid

6. ibid

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