ABSTRACT

Images of justice thrive upon the mystification of consensualised meanings and compromised speech and they comfort with the rhetorics of absolutism. Interactionist studies in Britain and the United States, for example, have shown that in the routine operation of Magistrates’ courts, formal and informal rules of procedure are often manipulated in order to facilitate an atmosphere of fairness and justice. Magistrates’ courts are a strategic feature in the dispensation of justice in Nigeria as the bulk of the cases triable in court are tried in these courts. With the exception of murder, most felony cases, even manslaughter, are tried in Nigerian magistrates’ courts. Most western sociological studies of courts have stressed the dramaturgical aspects of courtroom trials and the elements of social control endemic in such proceedings. Nigerian court trials are as intimidating as their western counterparts. The drama of degradation in Nigerian magistrates’ courts usually begins with arrival in court of defendants, particularly those in prison and police custody.