Legal Aid
Our legal team provides individuals in police custody with representation, consultation, and advocacy. We are committed to protecting the rights and dignity of every person.
Nikiea and Neveah Foundation will operate legal 'clinics' that will focus on common but high-impact legal or life or freedom-threatening issues applicable to low-income residents of the neighborhoods we serve.
Our legal services will focus on areas of law generally associated with financial distress.
We shall also provide legal assistance to low-income parents in child custody or other child-related cases. Lastly, we will fund criminal defense for low-income accused persons who are likely to be incarcerated if convicted; And if convicted, will continue to work with them, providing material and financial assistance where needed until they are released.
The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Amended), promotes equal justice on the basis of equal opportunity. This is to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities.
The right to free legal service is clearly an essential ingredient of reasonable, fair, and just societies for a person accused of any offense and it is implicit in the guarantee of a citizen's rights and privileges. This is a constitutional right of every accused person who is unable to engage a lawyer and secure legal services on account of reasons such as poverty, indigence, or incommunicado situation.
Ordinarily, the State is under a mandate to provide a lawyer to an accused person if the circumstances of the case and the needs of justice so require, provided, of course, the accused person does not object to the to the provision of such services. In any case, there are situations where an accused is not availed of proper representation. This could be as a result of abject poverty chronic ignorance or sheer powerlessness.
It is these loopholes and gaps in the justice administration system that the Nikiea and Neveah Foundation seeks to plug, address, and provide redress.
INDIVIDUALS QUALIFIED TO REQUEST FOR LEGAL AID AND THE STEPS INVOLVED:
Whether you qualify for legal aid will depend on:
A. The type of case
B. Your financial circumstances
This includes things like debt, family or housing problems (Tenancy matters), divorce, victims of abuse, etc. To get legal aid, you usually need to show you cannot afford to pay for legal costs and your problem is serious.
You will usually have to give details and evidence of your income, benefits, savings, and property (if any) and those of your partner (if any).
If you're under 18, you may need to give information about your parents' or guardians' income.
Notwithstanding the above requirements, whether or not you can provide the necessary information, we will set a mechanism in place to reel in cases where the individual(s) are indigent and have no one to speak for them.
By law, everyone has the right to free legal advice/aid if they are arrested and questioned at a police station.
You will automatically get legal aid for legal representation in court if you're under 16 or 18, or on certain benefits or per your impecuniosity.
Nikiea and Neveah Foundation will work with lawyers and top police officers such that contacting us in appropriate cases will be seamless.
If it is a case that requires boots on the ground as they do in most cases, our lawyers will be dispatched to offer further assistance. Otherwise, legal aid over the phone suffices. Our team of lawyers will be on standby for any further assistance they can provide.