Abstract
In Nigeria, police in the habit of arrest the accused person(s) without justifiable reasons sometimes with justifiable reason but without following the normal process sometimes the court get involved in such mess and this has left many people in Nigeria to believe that the judges are bias or maybe they work organized with the police men. A typical example of this problem is the consistent arrest and killing by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and this have made people to have the notion that there is no security of life in Nigeria.
CHAPTER
ONE
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INTRODUCTION
One area of the constitution, which the court have
made fair reaching pronouncement is in relation to the interpretation and
application of the constitutional rights to a fair hearing. For a society to be
properly so called, it must be founded on a set of laws and rights of the
individuals who make it up.
         But
more importantly whenever these rights are infringed, the law must guarantee
adequate protection of the rights conferred by law. To avoid arbitrariness in
the apportion of blames on the person, the law recognized the act of allowing
an individual to answer his acts or omissions. In other words, such a person is
guaranteed fair hearing prior to the determination of his case. Since the end
of law is the achievement of justice, the guarantee of justice will be
meaningless if hearing is not pursue vigorously in a legal system.
         Fair
hearing therefore is a natural right, which has been given constitutional recognition;
hence,
section 36 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria guarantees a person the right to fair hearing. The system of trial in
Nigeria as inherited from the English legal system is
viduersarial in that a trial is a contest between two parties and a
judge adopts the position of lawn tennis game. However, in criminal
jurisdiction, these parties bare normally the state of the community and the
person accused of the crime. The fundamental question for the court to decide
is, did the accused commit the offence in question?
         Certain
procedures must be observed in order to prove his guilt which the criminal
procedure involved in order to determine the guilt of the accused with special
reference to fair hearing. Since improper conduct of trial is ground for
appeal, it is the duty of those involved in the administration of justice to
observe certain basic rules in order to arrive at a decision, which will be
just to parties concerned. The criminal prosecution emphasizes due process and
procedural fairness. As such if the administrative aspect of the law is efficient
and the due process and procedure are followed, it could then be said that the
accused has been protected against unfair hearing.