KNOW YOUR CIVIL RIGHTS ON TRESPASS TO YOUR PERSON

[Olajire Deborah]

TRESPASS TO YOUR PERSON

Trespass to the person here means any unlawful or unauthorized contact or assault to your body. It is the general term used for any unlawful contact to the body like assault, battery, false imprisonment, physical torture, causing grievous injuries and the like.

The Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) guarantees every citizen a right to the dignity of his person. Section 34 of the Constitution specifically provides as follows:

“Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person…”

So, it follows that anything that derogates from the dignity of your person as an individual is unconstitutional and, therefore, wrong.

Trespass to the person comes in various forms. THence, to o better understand this therefore, I shall deal with the common and everyday instances of trespass to the person in the categories below.

a. Assault
In civil law, assault means any act by another person which puts you in fear of an imminent danger or harm. I want you to please note the definition of assault in civil law because it is totally different from the definitions in the dictionary or in criminal law. Assault under civil law is any attempt or any act done whether with force or violence, with the intention of putting you in danger or causing you injury. Note the word intention as used in that definition because we shall come back to it. The only difference here is that there was probably no actual bodily contact. So, it is assault if a man holds up his fist against you in a menacing or threatening manner. If a man moves to attack you and you are actually within his attacking distance, and others intervened to hold the man and prevent him from reaching you, it is assault. It does not matter that the man did not get to you or did not actually touch you bodily.

Other instances of assault in civil law include the following:

a) throwing stone or another object at another person with intent to cause him injury, even if the stone or object did not hit the victim;

b) driving a vehicle against another person with the threat of hitting that person and in such a manner that it puts that person in fear or apprehension of being hit;

c) striking another with a cane or horsewhip, though, the cane or horsewhip missed the victim;

d) pointing a gun at another with the threat of shooting at that person moreso when the person is within reach of the gunshot. Here, assault will be maintained even if the gun was not loaded, so far as the victim was not aware that it is unloaded.
Please note, however, that for you to be able to sustain your claim for assault, 2 elements must be present, as follows:

1. Actual intention: You must be able to prove that the defendant showed an actual intention to cause you bodily harm or injury. Intention here is very important because the court will not hold the defendant liable if he did not intend to cause you bodily harm. For example, a man who drives his car against another without the intention of causing harm or injury may not be held liable for assault. So also a man who throws an object at another without the intention to harm him may not be liable for assault. So, it must be clear from the facts of the case that there was an actual intention to cause the victim bodily harm through the assault.

2. Reasonable apprehension or fear of injury: Here, the wrongful act must have put you in a reasonable apprehension of injury or harm to your person. The requirement that there must be a reasonable apprehension is to show that you were in actual fear of your safety. For instance, if a man points an unloaded gun at you and you know that the gun is unloaded, you cannot be said to be in a reasonable apprehension or fear that the gun will cause you bodily harm. So also you cannot be said to be in a reasonable fear of injury if man who is obviously weaker and smaller in size moves or threatens to attack you. The defendant must, therefore, have that immediate capacity and ability to carry out the threat, which is what would put the victim in reasonable apprehension before assault can be maintained. And generally in law, reasonableness is measured by what will be the reaction of an average or reasonable person in the society.

Remember like I said before that assault under the civil law does not mean that the defendant must have had bodily contact with the victim. The most important factor is for there to be a reasonable apprehension of attack or injury to one’s person.

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