MEETING WITH MAGISTRATES OF THE BENUE STATE JUDICIARY ON PETTY OFFENCES

Lawyers Alert held a meeting with about 30 magistrates of the Benue state judiciary in attendance.

At the said meeting, sessions were taken on what petty offences are and the need to apply the law in a way that conforms with the spirt and principles of decriminalization of these offenses.

Petty offenses are victimless offenses like loitering, being a vagabond, hawking, alms seeking etc. These are offenses that are majorly tried at magisterial level and leads to detention and incarceration in most cases. It is said to wear the face of poverty and the poor and vulnerable groups are the target. Lawyers Alert is working towards decriminalizing these offenses.

At the meeting with the Magistrates, an exposition of the advisory opinion of the African Court on Human and people's Rights was carried out. The Advisory decision of the African court encourages states to decriminalize these offenses.

The Chief Registrar of the Benue State High Court, Mrs L. T.Tsumba in her keynote address, commended Lawyers Alert for organizing the workshop and implored the magistrates in attendance to take opportunity of the meeting to learn more about petty offences and the need to be well guided in their daily operations.
Contributing to discussion, some of the judicial officer’s expressed strong support for the training as they also share experiences of their willingness to award non-custodial sentences when these offenses now come before them. They equally opined on how important it is to get the legislature to amend some of these laws now featuring in our various books.

As a way forward, the magistrates promised they were going to be more guided in their handling of petty offences from now.
The meeting was supported by the Open Society Initiative West Africa, OSIWA.