An Appraisal Of The Meaning And Importance Of Fair Hearing In The Legal Parlance -By Hussain Wahab

Ours is a democratic society governed with rules and regulations with a well-defined system of justice. Here in Nigeria, the court is an umpire holding evenly the scale of justice between the disputing parties. As a result of this, the court must ensure that justice is done to all matters and all parties before it. Justice must not only be served to the deserving party, but must also be seen to have been duly served. This is the hallmark of justice. In doing this, the court must ensure that the twin principles of justice are strictly adhered to in every litigation.
The term fair hearing is a compounding word that needs to be explicitly explained individually. Literally, the word “Fair means treating people equally, justly, appropriately, moderately or politely. While on the other hand, “hearing” means an opportunity to state one’s case. It connotes an act of listening to parties in dispute with all fairness.

Fair hearing in legal parlance solely rests on the twin pillars of natural justice encapsulated in the legal maxims:
(a) Audi alteram partem (hear both side, no party should be condemned unheard) ; and

(b) nemo judex in casua sua (a person can’t be a judge in his own case)

In practice, whenever an individual is arrested, he must, as a matter of law be informed of the crime he has been accused of committing in the language he understands. For a hearing to be fair, it must be held before a court of competent jurisdiction. Fair hearing connotes that an accused person must be present from the beginning to the end of his trial as an accused cannot be tried in absentia. For us to say that there is fair hearing, the accused person must be given the opportunity to be heard and put up a defence before he can be convicted for the alleged crime; denial of this constitutional right will render the entire proceedings nugatory and his conviction being quashed on appeal. Whenever any person is charged with a crime he shall be entitled to be brought to a court of competent jurisdiction within a reasonable time, unless the charge is withdrawn, See S36(4) CFRN. 1999 as amended. See also the cases of Effiom vs the state(1995) 1 NWLR pt 373, P. 507 SC., Chinelu vs COP, Ekrebe vs Efeizomor, LPDC VS FAWEHINMI among others
Similarly, it should be noted there is no provision for jungle justice. As a result, any person who acts in contrary to this shall be punished, because jungle justice itself is a felony (a serious criminal offence) which shall be punished with fine, imprisonment exceeding a year or death as the case maybe. Also, any custom that denied an accused person freedom of Fair hearing is said to be repugnant to natural justice, good policy and good conscience. (see the case of Guri v Hadeija Native Authority)

It’s Paramount to know that no matter how serious an offence is, it’s lighter in court of law and the accused person will still be presumed to be innocent unless proved otherwise. Reference to S36(5) of 1999 constitution of federal republic of Nigeria as ammended. Also, see the case of Adeyemi vs the state(1991), also state vs Ajie(2000) among others.

In short, fair hearing gives a person who is charged with criminal offence the right to;

(a) Be informed promptly in the language that he clearly understands and in detail peculiar to the offence committed ;

(b) Be given adequate time to prepare for his defence;

(c) Defend himself in person or through legal practitioner of his choice;

(d) Have interpreter to interpret if he cannot understand the language used at the trial without any payment. (see S36(6)a-e of CFRN for more details )

IMPORTANCE OF FAIR HEARING

The Importance of fair hearing cannot be overemphasized because this fundamental right helps to make judgement without any manipulation, hypocrisy, bias and partiality which will prevent innocent citizen life from being jeopardized and endangered. For instance, not all Murderer will be killed because some people committed this offence accidentally and not willingly (manslaughter). Conversely, some maimed or killed to defend themselves (self defense ). So, if freedom of fair hearing is not assured, how could this be known and decided? From this, it can be inferred that justice rushed is justice crushed. In addition, fair hearing helps to decide case prudently by the court because both parties will present their cases and be heard
Lastly, Fair hearing helps to maintain and consolidate the three major principles of rule of law as propounded by Albert Venn Dicey viz;
Supremacy of the law, equality before the law and fundamental human rights.

That is, a judgement should base on due process, natural justice, equity, equality and impartiality without any form of negative ‘ism’ be it favoritism, nepotism, tribalism and other in decision making.

CONCLUSION

Conclusively, know your rights and you shall be set free from any shackle of captivity because every individual is entitled to fair hearing otherwise known as due process of law, to determine his rights, duties or obligations in civil or criminal proceedings before a competent court or tribunal that are saddled with the responsibility to interpret the law and settle dispute. (see section 6 of CFRN 1999 as ammended).

Note: The principle of the cited cases will be adumberated in the second phase of this work. Thanks for reading.

Hussain Wahab wrote this on this date, 2020. This is the article behind my journalism journey.

Hussain Kehinde Wahab is an intermediary law student in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto.

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GMAIL : wahabhussain323@gmail.com