{"id":1893,"date":"2019-11-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/criminal-code-act-amendment-bill-2019-scales-second-reading\/"},"modified":"2019-11-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T00:00:00","slug":"criminal-code-act-amendment-bill-2019-scales-second-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/criminal-code-act-amendment-bill-2019-scales-second-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal Code Act (Amendment) Bill, 2019 Scales Second Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">The Criminal Code Act (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (<strong>SB.02)<\/strong> passed second reading in the Senate. The Bill seeks to delete the limitation period for the prosecution of defilement; increase penalty for offences of kidnapping; and to remove gender restrictions for rape offences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Presenting the debate on the Bill at the plenary session of\nTuesday, 26 November 2019, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu (APC: Lagos) explained that the\nBill sought to delete certain provisions of <strong>Section 218<\/strong> which deals with\n<em>Offences Against Moralit<strong>y<\/strong><\/em> noting that proviso which provides that,&nbsp; <strong><em>\u201cA &nbsp;prosecution for either of the offences defined\nin this section shall be begun within two months after the offence is committed<\/em><\/strong><em>\u201d\n<\/em>imposed a limit for the prosecution of offences on defilement and created a\nhuge margin for inaccuracy.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen Tinubu spoke on <strong>Section 221, <\/strong>which deals with <em>Offences\nagainst Morality. <\/em>The provision states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(1)\n<strong><em>\u201cAny person who has or attempts to have unlawful carnal knowledge of a\ngirl being of or above thirteen years and under sixteen years of age<\/em><\/strong><em>\u201d\nand <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>(2)\n<strong>knowing a woman or girl to be an idiot or imbecile, has or attempts to have\nunlawful carnal knowledge of her; <\/strong><\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;is guilty\nof a misdemeanor, and is liable to imprisonment for two years, with or without\ncaning<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen Tinubu, said that <em>subsection (1)<\/em> should be\namended to include a \u201cMinor\u201d, and the term<em> \u201cimbecile\u201d <\/em>and<em> \u201cidiot\u201d<\/em>\nin <em>subsection (2)<\/em> connotes a derogative remark and therefore should be\nsubstituted with the word <strong><em>\u201cmentally challenged\u201d<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; In addition, she stated that <strong>Section 357<\/strong>which deals with<strong><em>, Assaults on Females: Abduction\u201d <\/em><\/strong>should\nbe amended to indicate incidences of non-consensual sex perpetrated against a\nboy or man, whereas, <strong>Section 364 <\/strong>of the Principal Act should be amended\nto profferlife sentences for persons found guilty of kidnapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen. Tinubu also expressed concerns over the incessant cases\nof kidnapping, rape and defilement across the country noting that it had become\nimperative to review the Criminal Code Act, 2004 to ensure that appropriate\npenalties are imposed for these crimes. The Bill has been referred to the\nCommittee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters for further legislative\nscrutiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Criminal Code Act (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (SB.02) passed second reading in the Senate. The Bill seeks to delete the limitation period for the prosecution of defilement; increase penalty for offences of kidnapping; and to remove gender restrictions for rape offences. Presenting the debate on the Bill at the plenary session of Tuesday, 26 November [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"PLAC","author_link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/author\/olumide-adebayo\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Justice-Photo-300x171.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/category\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">News<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 27, 2019","modified":"Updated on November 27, 2019"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 27, 2019 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on November 27, 2019 12:00 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}