Justice Walter Onnoghen 



WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "CLOSE A CASE"?

Yesterday news broke that the Federal Government has closed it's case against the suspended CJN, Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen, and a lot of folks went to town with the news that the case against the CJN has been withdrawn.

No. The case has not been withdrawn. To close a case and to withdraw a case are two different things.

Now, this is how it works. In a criminal case, we have the prosecution, usually the state or federal government through its agency like the Attorney General's office, the police or any other agency so empowered, that arrest or brings a person suspected to have committed a crime to court; then we have the accused or defendant who is the person suspected to have committed a crime and brought to court.

Of course both parties, the prosecution and the defendant, will be represented by lawyers in court.

In court, it is the duty of the prosecution to bring witnesses and tender evidence (in form of documents, audio, videos, etc) to prove that the accused or defendant is guilty.

When the prosecution is done calling all its witnesses or tendering all the evidence they have to prove that the accused or defendant is guilty, then it is said that the prosecution (which is usually the state or federal government) has closed it's case.

So to close a case means that the prosecution has called all its witnesses to testify and tender all its documents to prove that the defendant is guilty. It means that if you take someone to court to prove that he stole and you brought 5 persons (witnesses) to testify that indeed the person stole and 3 documents to show that the person indeed stole, once all the 5 persons you brought to court has testified and you have shown/given the court all the 3 documents, YOU HAVE CLOSED YOUR CASE.

So what happens when the prosecution closes its case?

The accused or defendant will enter or present his defence. That means that the accused or defendant will also call witnesses to testify and tender documents to prove that he is innocent or to prove that all what the prosecution witnesses said or the documents the prosecution tendered are not true.

Or the accused or defendant can enter a no case submission.

What does a no case submission mean?

"When a no case submission is made, it basically means that the defendant is asking the court for an acquittal without it having to present a defence. The defendant is literally saying to the court that there is no case to answer i.e. the prosecution has not sufficiently proven the legal threshold to establish the commission of a crime in the court of law.

The submission is reliant on the strength (or rather, the lack thereof) of the prosecution’s evidence.  When used, the results are extremely beneficial to a defendant because, when successful, it means that the case effectively stops without the need for the defendant to call any evidence at all.

The defence makes the plea by filing an application before the court, and if the judge agrees, then the matter is dismissed and the defendant is acquitted without having to present any evidence in their defence. If the judge does not accept the submission, the case continues and the defence must present their case. Therefore, because the defence really loses nothing by filing a no case submission application, it is a very common defence tactic used in criminal cases in Nigeria."

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- First Baba Isa (FBI) is a Legal Practitioner and writes from Abuja