A non-governmental organisation, Cleen Foundation, in partnership with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Kaduna State, has launched a resource centre where information on corruption cases judgements can be accessed by legal practitioners in the state.
The centre is expected to serve as a repository of court rulings on corruption and financial crimes related cases in the state.
Executive director of Cleen Foundation, Dr Benson Olugbuo, disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday.
He stated that the Kaduna chapter of the NBA was selected to serve as a partner to host the centre in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation, another NGO, as part of its ongoing project on promoting accountability and transparency in the Administration of Criminal Justice (ACJA) in Nigeria.
The executive director explained that the project was aimed at reducing corruption, promoting judicial transparency in the processing of anti-corruption cases and enhancing accountability in Nigeria’s criminal justice system.
Olugbuo stated further that, “This is with a view to making information on recent court rulings and judgments easily accessible both on online and offline to legal practitioners.
“This will also be disseminated through same way to the law enforcement agencies, judges, prosecutors and defendants who are responsible for the administration of criminal justice.
“Government agencies, legal scholars, researchers and Civil Society organizations, working for justice sector reforms especially with the application of ACJA on corruption and accountability, will also find it very useful.”
Furthermore, he continued, it will provide for monitoring of cases of corruption in relation to the ACJA 2015 through a functional and accessible public web-based platform called `Uwazi’.
Olugbuo added: “For more impact-based monitoring and reporting of the administration of criminal justice system across the focal states, it is expected that the NBA will periodically give updates on the resource centre and its successes.”
He charged the NBA to ensure that the project is fully engaged, saying, “At the last outstanding 6th Bi-Monthly meeting scheduled for first Week in December, we expect a report on the success rate of the usage of the centre.
“We want to know the rate of engagement with the centre, this is to understand the advancing work in the justice system.”
He appreciated the NBA in the state for hosting the centre and all its efforts from the concept stage to the point of implementation.
(NAN)