ACJA compliance
Criminal practice, with the Act in the file.
The Administration of Criminal Justice Act sits in the research corpus, so questions about arraignment, bail, custody time limits, and adjournments are answered with the provision in front of you. Criminal matters tracked with the dates that the Act actually turns on.
Criminal procedure
What the Act made trackable.
The Administration of Criminal Justice Act was designed to move criminal matters faster: limits on adjournments, reporting on detainees, and day-to-day trial where possible. Those reforms only bite if somebody is counting the days, which is a record-keeping problem before it is a legal one.
The Act, searchable
Ask a question in plain language and get the answer with the section cited and linked, alongside the case law interpreting it.
Custody and bail dates
Detention dates, bail conditions, and review dates recorded on the matter with reminders that escalate rather than lapse.
Adjournment history
Every adjournment logged with its date and reason, so the procedural history of the matter is a record rather than a recollection.
Case file and disclosure
Statements, exhibits, and proofs held with version history and reviewed in bulk when the file is large.
In depth
Delay is a record-keeping failure first.
Counting
The argument you cannot make without the dates.
An application built on delay depends entirely on a precise procedural history: when the defendant was first detained, how many adjournments there have been, who sought each one, and how long the matter has sat. Reconstructing that from a paper file the week before a hearing is how good applications are lost. Recorded as it happens, it is available whenever you need it.
Volume
A heavy criminal list is a caseload problem.
Criminal practitioners carry more matters than commercial colleagues, each with its own court dates and its own client in custody. A dashboard that shows which matters have hearings this week, which have unactioned deadlines, and which have had no movement in a month is the difference between managing a list and being managed by it.
FAQ
Questions, addressed.
What is the ACJA?
The Administration of Criminal Justice Act is the principal statute governing criminal procedure in Nigeria at federal level. It was introduced to reduce delay and improve the treatment of defendants, including provisions on arraignment, bail, limits on adjournments, and reporting on people held in custody. Several states have enacted their own equivalent laws.
Is the ACJA searchable in ModulawAI?
Yes. The Act is part of the Nigerian research corpus alongside case law, CAMA 2020, other federal legislation, and rules of court, so a question about a provision returns an answer with the section cited and linked.
How does the software help with ACJA compliance?
Most of what the Act requires in practice is date discipline: custody dates, bail review dates, adjournment history, and hearing dates. Those are tracked per matter with reminders that escalate to a supervising practitioner if nothing is actioned, and the resulting procedural history is exportable.
Does it cover state criminal procedure laws?
Coverage focuses on federal legislation and reported case law. Where a state has its own administration of criminal justice law, confirm the applicable provision directly, and use linked authority in every answer to check what applies in your jurisdiction.
The clocks the Act started
The ACJA is mostly a set of deadlines.
The reforms that made the Act significant are, in practice, counting rules. They only work for your client if somebody has kept the count, which is why the procedural history of a criminal file is worth as much as the brief.
| Provision | What it requires |
|---|---|
| s.396(3) to (5) | Trial proceeds day to day from arraignment. Adjournments are capped at five for each party, with intervals not exceeding 14 working days. Where concluding within that is impracticable, further adjournments run at intervals not exceeding seven days. |
| s.306 | An application to stay proceedings in a criminal matter shall not be entertained. The interlocutory appeal is no longer a route to delay. |
| s.396(7) | A judge elevated to the Court of Appeal may continue to sit as a High Court judge to conclude a part-heard criminal matter, within a reasonable time. |
| s.270 | Plea bargain, available with the consent of the victim or their representative, during or after the prosecution’s evidence but before the defence opens its case. The window closes. |
| ss.293 to 299 | Remand proceedings before a magistrate, with the returns and reviews that go with them. |
| s.29 | The officer in charge reports every arrest to the nearest magistrate on the last working day of each month, and the magistrate forwards it to the Administration of Criminal Justice Monitoring Committee. |
| s.34(1) | The Chief Magistrate, or a magistrate designated by the Chief Judge, inspects police stations and other places of detention at least once a month. |
Read together, these turn defence work into a timing exercise. The cap in s.396 is per party, so your own adjournments count against you as surely as the prosecution’s. The plea bargain window under s.270 shuts when the defence opens its case, which makes the decision a diary entry rather than a negotiation you can return to. And because s.306 removes the stay of proceedings, a preliminary point has to be taken and lived with while the trial continues around it.
How the file keeps the count
A procedural history you can put in front of a judge.
An application that turns on delay is only as good as the record behind it. Counsel who can state, from the file, that the defendant was first detained on a given date, that this is the prosecution’s fourth adjournment, that the last interval was 21 working days, and that the matter has not moved since a named date, is making a different application from counsel who is reconstructing it from memory the night before.
- Adjournments are counted, per party. Each is logged with its date, the party who sought it and the reason, so the s.396 tally and the interval between sittings are a record rather than an argument.
- Custody dates drive the reminders. First detention, remand returns, bail conditions and review dates sit on the matter, and an unacknowledged date escalates instead of expiring quietly in a notification list.
- The Act answers where you are working. The ACJA is in the research corpus, so a question about a provision returns the section itself, with the authorities interpreting it, and drops into the application you are drafting.
- A heavy list is visible as a list. Criminal practitioners carry more matters than most commercial colleagues. One view of which files have hearings this week, which have unactioned deadlines and which have not moved in a month is the difference between running a caseload and being run by it.
- Disclosure stays reviewable at volume. Statements, exhibits and proofs are held with version history, and a large bundle can be questioned across every document at once rather than one file at a time.
What this does not do. It does not tell you whether to take a plea, when to make a no-case submission, or how to run a cross-examination. It does not file anything at the registry, and several states have their own administration of criminal justice laws whose numbering and detail differ from the federal Act, so the provision that governs your matter depends on the court you are in. What it does is keep the dates, the adjournment history and the custody record accurate enough to argue from.
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