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One fateful night, there was a quarrel between two men who were living in the same compound over an electricity bill.This quarrel soon escalated to a physical combat between them.One eventually stabbed the other in the stomach and this caused him to bleed to death.Thinking that nobody was watching, this man who just killed his neighbour dragged his remains to the road side, at about twelve midnight, twelve hours after the murder, to make it look like a armed robbery scene.
As fate would have it, however, somebody somewhere in the neighbourhood watched the whole scene from the beginning to the end from upstairs. This person happened to be the judge presiding over the only division of the State's High Court that covers the area where the murder took place.
The other residents of the area are now of the view that the prosecution of the matter should not suffer any challenge as far as evidence is concerned since the only witness in the case is the judge that will hear the case.They believe he should just convict and sentence the murderer straight since he witnessed the scene himself and that he needed nobody else to convince him about guilt of this criminal.Is the opinion of this people correct  in view of the applicable law in Nigeria?


THE LEGAL POSITION
Section 36 (5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republc of Nigeria provides for constitutional presumption of innocence of an accused person.It is important to note that the prosecution of the criminal in the above scenario is subject to the Nigerian criminal procedure law.In fact, this involves a lot of technicalities.
One of such technicalities is the above - cited provision of our constitution which guarantees that a criminal suspect shall be presumed innocent until his guilt is proved by a court of competent jurisdiction. Not only this.What also comes to play in our criminal procedure is the twin principles of fair hearing to the effect that both sides to a matter shall be heard and that one shall not be  the judge in his own cause.
The principle that one shall not be the judge in his own cause has been extended to include the above scenario in that that judge, being a witness to the murder, cannot preside over the case.In fact, that case can only be assigned to another judge.The judge that witnessed the incident can only be called as a witness to testify against the criminal in the circumstances. In other words, beauty of the Nigerian criminal procedure and, even, civil procedure is that one cannot be the judge and also be a witness in the same case.

Have a wonderful week ahead!





Have a wonderful week ahead!