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Access to Justice Excites Interest in Revitalizing Coroner Inquest laws as it Meets with Attorneys-General of 5 States in Eastern Nigeria

From May to July 2004, Access to Justice consultant Hon. JusticeAnthony Ezeani (rtd) was visiting Attorneys-General of States in Eastern Nigeria, and discussing the reoperationization of coroner inquest laws with these Chief Law Officers. Justice Ezeani reports that these Chief Law Officers were enthusiastic about ending the practice of extrajudicial killings and were excited about the prospects of using coroner inquest laws to explore this possibility. Before now, many of them thought that Coroner laws were dead: for example, after introducing the coroner's procedure to J.T.U. Nnodum SAN, Hon. Attorney-General of Imo State, the A.G. quipped, "but that is moribund", after which Justice Ezeani clarified the status of the law and advocated further reform to strengthen the law. Justice Ezeani also met with S. Chime, Attorney-General of Enugu State, Chief Awa Kalu, SAN, Attorney-General of Abia State, Hon. U.N. Udechukwu, Attorney-General of Anambra State, H. Odein Ajumogobia, SAN, Attorney-General of Rivers State, and later made efforts to see the Attorneys-General of Cross River and Akwa Ibom States.

Access to Justice has reached other States' Attorneys-General, and interest in reviving the coroner's procedure is strong. In a letter to Access to Justice, Attorney-General of Ondo State said 'there is no doubt that the Coroner Law has remained inactive for so long in this nation and there is need for it to be invigorated to cope with the dynamics of our society, particularly with the increase in wanton destruction of lives."

"This aptly states the raison d'etre of an inquest as one of the instruments for enforcing the constitutionally guaranteed right to life under which intentional deprivation of life is prohibited, except pursuant to a court sentence ordered in accordance with due process. It is towards this end that an inquest becomes necessary whenever a death is suspected to be violent or unnatural or sudden without the cause being known.

This means that an inquest is necessary or desirable whenever a death occurs in circumstances which portend suspicion that it is not natural. The duty of the coroner, therefore, is to investigate the circumstances of any such death, with a view to deciding/certifying, so far as such particulars have been proved to him, who the deceased was, and how, when and where the deceased came by his death."

- Professor Adedokun A. Adeyemi, Professor of Law and Criminology at a workshop on Using Coroner Laws to Confront Extra-judicial Killings organised by Access to Justice with the Lagos State Ministry of Justice (Office of the Public Defender).