NIALS urges National Assembly to abrogate death penalty

(Nigeria) Prof. Epiphany Azinge, SAN, Director-General, Nigeria Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, NIALS,  has called on the  National Assembly to repeal the death penalty in the nation's law books. He made the call when he led a delegation of NIALS members on a courtesy visit to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal in Abuja on Tuesday.
Azinge expressed regrets that some people were still clamouring for the inclusion of death penalty in the law books, noting that such a call did not put Nigeria in proper position within the acceptable global legal practice.
``We in the Nigeria Institute of Advanced Legal Studies seek an abrogation of the death penalty in all our laws. It's a matter of despair to hear that people still clamour for death penalty in our law books, It does not put us in proper perspective in the global legal practice,’’ Azinge said.
He congratulated the House of Representatives for legislating on what he described as people-centred bills and the number of bills passed in the last two years under the leadership of Tambuwal.
Azinge also urged the house to identify more with the activities of the institute, particularly in its efforts to rid the country of regressive and obsolete laws.
The director-general said that the National Assembly, in spite of its efforts in the direction of lawmaking in the last two years, needed more capacity building in the area of legislative drafting.
He said, though, the NIALS was established as a national institute of legislative studies, but it was also part of its mandate to build capacity on legislative drafting.
The law professor said that the house had turned out many bills some of which, he noted, were not evidence-based.
He said that the institute had done extensive work on chapter two of the constitution to make it justifiable.
Azinge urged the parliament to ensure that all the rights captured in chapter two of the 1999 Constitution for the citizenry were guaranteed.
He presented several books to Tambuwal on legal profession in Nigeria since 1914, including State of Emergency and Politics, Legislative Drafting and other seminal works on key legal areas.
Responding, the speaker said that the house was already in the process of abrogating some archaic laws and had even mandated the Committee on Justice to carry out the assignment.
He called on NIALS to assist the committee in the task of amending these laws and abrogating them out rightly to bring the legal system in tandem with the global standards.
``As we embark on the review of archaic laws, we will appreciate your efforts in helping the committee on justice with its work. We call on you to help the committee on Justice to amend these outdated laws,’’ he said.
Tambuwal also commended the institute for all the training programmes for members of the parliament.
He also requested the institute to train members and staff of the Rules and Business Committee on legislative drafting.