THE ROLE OF A JUDGE IN PLEA BARGAIN IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT (ACJA) 2015

As plea bargaining become part of our laws in Nigeria, it is therefore important to put it on spotlight to attract public criticism and observations especially from the experts in the administration of justice in order to develop the law in future legislation amendment.Furthermore, in order to simplify accessing, extractions and articulations of the law from the Act by the judges and other key players in the administration of justice, these are basic reasons for the choice of the topic.The paper used doctrinal method of research to offer a brief discussion on the meaning of the plea bargaining and further traced the historical background of plea bargaining in Nigerian legal system.It also looks at plea bargaining practices in other jurisdictions, highlighting advantages and disadvantages and types of plea bargain.It paper further succinctly itemised the roles of a judge in plea bargain as enshrined in the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015, and finally analysed the controversy concerning section 270 (18) of the ACJA 2015 in relation to its constitutionality.