EXAMINING THE ROLE OF THE LEGAL AID COUNCIL IN RESPECT OF RIGHT AGAINST TORTURE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The article interrogates the juridical architecture of the right against torture in Nigeria through the institutional lens of the Legal Aid Council. The inquiry is necessitated by the fact that the Council constituted the sine qua non of effective domestication, even though inadequately considered in anti-torture scholarship. The author contends that Nigeria’s normative prohibition of torture (anchored in the 1999 Constitution, the Anti-Torture Act 2017, and the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015) created positive obligations on prevention, prosecution, and reparation. Furthermore, that the Legal Aid Council has been uniquely positioned to effectuate the ideals of not subjecting anyone to torture. The Council’s mandate under the Legal Aid Act 2011 provided the thesis that legal aid represents not merely a welfare mechanism but a jus cogens, empowering institutions to transform the abstract erga omnes prohibition into justiciable reality for indigent victims. The paper therefore concluded by proposing a re-conceptualization of the mandates of the Council as a specialised torture-prevention body, always poised in advocating expanded mandates, sustainable financing, and synergistic collaboration with the National Human Rights Commission in-order to  realize the ubi jus ibi remedium imperatives in Nigeria’s counter-torture jurisprudence.