Analysis of Theft and Allied Offences under the English Laws: The Many “Whys” That Make the Nigeria Jurisprudence Preferable?
- December 2, 2021
- Posted by: RSIS
- Categories: IJRISS, Law
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue XI, November 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186
Peter A. Ocheme
Professor, School of Law, American University of Nigeria, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria
Abstract: By way of breaking away from the traditional convention of legal validity even without codification, more particularly with respect to criminal justice administration, the English Parliament has evolved a trend to continually review their laws relating to theft and allied offences alongside the speed by which the offences/crimes are technologically carried out. The research undertakes a doctrinal review of the genealogical improvements associated with the legal regimes vis-a-vis the technological appliances being employed by those who engage in these criminal activities, which includes the Internet… The discoveries are not only in respect of the changes interrelating between law and practical realities, but also in respect of the variety of properties – visible and invisible; tangible and intangible, and including Land, that are now capable of being stolen. The research also reveals that unlike the situations in England — not even Wales, let alone the United Kingdom as a whole — the Nigerian laws in respect of Theft and allied offences have remain as static as they were first drafted before Independence, whereas the technologies which aid and abet the commission of these offences are all put in use in Nigeria as in England. The contributions to knowledge to be derived from this study are in the sphere of the current scope of proprietary criminal laws in England which inversely mirrors their Nigerian contemporaries as rather lame ducks; while absurdly, they all seemingly are operating within the same Common Law and also the Commonwealth league of Nations.
I. INTRODUCTION:
The chosen theatre by this Paper, which is to examine the English Law on the crime of Theft and allied offences, in specific isolation of the Nigerian arena, has been predicated on a number of reasons. First, per force of law, there are still the pseudo and neo-colonial strings through which the Nigerian legal systems (even in their supposed independence) have shared unwittingly, so to say, umbilical ties with the English, such that even long after her Independence (almost 51 years ago), each time an in-depth study of any Nigerian law is embarked upon, the aetiology is a normal detour to the Laws of England. Secondly, notwithstanding that Nigerian local statutes have sought to be indigenous in outlook, the Common Law of England along with its Doctrines of Equity, are still applicable in Nigeria .
