Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, in his first major legislative duty since returning from a wrongful incarceration, has presented a bill, which seeks to amend the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
Already, the bill has been read by Clerk of the Senate, Mr. Nelson Ayewoh and passed for second reading after a voice vote administered by the President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan.
It was learned that the bill seeks to strengthen the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), specifically the sections that contradict the principles of fair hearing and court jurisdiction as enshrined in the Constitution.
The Supreme Court, in a unanimous judgment on May 8, 2020, had faulted a section of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), upon which the former governor was on December 5 last year, wrongfully sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for fraud and money laundering.
It was the provision, which the President of the Court of Appeal relied upon, in granting leave to a trial judge, who had been elevated to the Court of Appeal, to return to the lower court to conclude a case.
Following that flawed ruling, Senator Kalu was wrongfully incarcerated for six months at the Kuje Correctional Center in Abuja, until the Supreme Court quashed his conviction.
Observers believe that Kalu’s move to have the Act amended might have derived from his personal experience, which others could have suffered previously without such privilege to voice out its inherent drawbacks.