Recently, there was a news item that a married woman in Delta State was stripped naked and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, including torture, assault by the youths of the community for allegedly committing adultery.
According to reports, the youths of the community descended on the woman after she was reported by her infuriated husband that she committed adultery.
After so much torture and being exposed to ridicule the woman was excommunicated from the community an act which they said will serve as a deterrence to others.
This pathetic scenario represents the extent some persons can go in trying to resort to self-help while tackling some legal questions.
It raises the following questions:
1) What is adultery
2) Is adultery a crime
3) What is the punishment for adultery
4) Is self-help or infringement of right to respect for human dignity the solution
Adultery is a voluntary sexual relationship between a married person and a person who is not his/her spouse.
Every sane society no doubt frowns at adultery or infidelity in any matrimonial home as it breeds mistrust, acrimony and more often than not lead to dissolution of marriage.
Indeed, such reckless and indecent conduct has always attracted societal condemnation, irrespective of religion, social or political leanings. According to the Holy Bible, a woman was accused of adultery and would have been sent to an early grave but for the quick intervention of Jesus Christ when he admonished those accusing the woman of the crime to cast the first stone if any of them was innocent of the offence they accused the woman, and eventually that saved the woman. This shows that adultery is intolerable but before you can crucify one, you must not be guilty of same thing complaint about.
Under Islamic law, adultery is equally frowned at and is not condoned.
Under our laws, however, adultery is not a crime in the southern part of Nigeria, where the criminal code operates although it could be a ground for divorce while under the penal code, which operates in the northern part of the country, it is punishable with two years jail term.
Under the criminal code, there is no written law or punishment linking adultery as a criminal offence. For it to be a criminal offence, it has to be written in our laws and the necessary sanctions prescribed accordingly and since it is not in our criminal code, it cannot be the basis for punishment. According to section 36 (12) of the constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria as (amended)… “a person shall not be convicted of a criminal offence unless that offence is defined and the penalty therefore is prescribed in a written law”. This same position has been upheld in the case of Aoko v Fagbemi.
Though intolerable and painful, adultery has no punishment under our criminal code except under the penal code.
Any person who is aggrieved of adulterous conduct of his spouse in the southern part of the country can press for divorce as the intolerable conduct can ground dissolution of marriage.
Thus adultery has consequences in the southern part of the country as a civil cause and not a crime.
Stripping a woman or man naked because of alleged adultery is totally unlawful and indeed a violation of the victim’s right to respect for his human dignity as enshrined in section 34 of the 1999 constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
Specifically, section 34(1) (a) of the constitution states “Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person and accordingly-(a) no person shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment. Same provisions are captured in section 8 of the Administration of criminal justice act (ACJA)2015 and its domestication in the 36 states of the federation.
Whats more, the anti-torture Act 2017 not only criminalized torture, degrading and inhuman treatment but provides for a jail term of not more than 25 years for the offence.
Constitutionally, any person whose right has been abused, as in the case of the woman accused of adultery, can approach the court to enforce her fundamental rights and demand for apology and aggravated damages from the youths and the husband who set the youths against her. See section 46 (1) of 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended)
This by no means any attempt to encourage adultery but the point being made here is that self-help is unlawful. Any spouse that is pained by adulterous act need not to resort to self-help but seek for divorce.
To avoid being caught on the wrong side of the law, spouses should consult a lawyer for necessary legal advice and action. Self-help or trial by ordeal remain totally unlawful and unacceptable
To resort to violation of the rights of people is unlawful, reprehensive and totally unacceptable, especially in a democratic society.
