By Astere Muyango | IBJ Fellow and Country Manager
The Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC) supports courts remote from prisons where accused are detained, by covering costs of transports for judges, prosecutors and courts clerks of such courts. Since January 2013, as CIBITOKE court sit in trials to hear prisoners who are imprisoned in the Central Prison of MPIMBA (Bujumbura), International Bridges to Justice provide free legal assistance to the accused of Cibitoke especially to juveniles, while the BTC offers logistical support to the court and this makes hearings possible.
On the last session of 27th of March 2013, IBJ lawyers assisted nine cases where more than 12 accused were involved among whom 3 were juveniles. Among the assisted of January, 4 have been already acquitted, another who was prosecuted for 10 years saw his crime re qualified/ renamed and was condemned to pay a fine of 100 000 Fbi, around 70 USD. All the juveniles assisted have had their cases taken for deliberation. Within more than two months the court will have pronounced itself on the decision that will have been taken according to their cases.
Furthermore, IBJ kept on working in MURAMVYA Province to assist vulnerable accused of crime. One should note that in Muramvya thanks to IBJ support, all juvenile cases have been closed and all released, and that has been possible after the IBJ trainings provided to Muramvya jurisdiction stakeholders.
All this is happening on the time that the legal framework is changing for the sake of children in conflict with the law. After many roundtables which gathered criminal justice stakeholders among whom MPs and members of the Senate senators, after trainings and radio programs which diffused innovations of that law which was at that time a bill of law for more than 3 years, after judicial short shows after each evening News where IBJ put a special emphasis to the fact that the code will create an obligation that every child accused of crime to be granted the right to legal representation as well as other innovations like the one of establishing special chambers of minors, that law has been voted. The adoption is an element among others which lets IBJ hope for a new age of Juvenile Justice in Burundi.
IBJ has already diffused the main improvements of this text when it was still a bill, but we will continue to raise the main innovations of that law that help the development of the juvenile justice in Burundi, through its implementation. The following step is to support the implementation this text which is, in IBJ’s view, one which can help to improve human rights in general, and the respect of the rights of the child in Burundi.
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