In Guinea, prisons are teeming with minors in conflict with the law. These kids, for all or nothing, are placed under arrest warrant and imprisoned alongside ”highway bandits”. This is the case at the Conakry central prison where many minors are currently detained. Some have already spent months in this prison without trial. This situation sometimes outrages some human rights defenders, but also lawyers who plead the cause of these children.
Questioned by a reporter from Guineematin.com, Me Thierno Souleymane Barry denounced a “dysfunction of the judicial system” in Guinea. This lawyer at the bar of Guinea castigates in particular the institutional framework and the absence of a substantial budget to organize the trials of minors in Conakry.
Master Thierno Souleymane Barry
“The justice system for minor children in Guinea is an incomplete or weak system. Despite the fact that we are one of the very first countries to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to have seen a code that recognizes the specificity of juvenile justice, the implementation of this code- there, from the institutional point of view, did not follow. Take for example the case of the seat of the children’s court of Conakry which covers 5 municipalities. This court has swayed from corner to corner. He was in the annex of the Kaloum court of first instance before moving to the former ministry of citizenship and national unity a few weeks ago. When magistrates dedicated to the protection of children’s rights do not even have a working framework, see the difficulty. Especially since the holding of the trials depended on the availability of the only room in the Kaloum court of first instance or a room graciously donated to the court of appeal. While in matters of justice for minors, celerity, speed is required. This is why there is ordinary justice and specific justice for the child, given the fact that he is a developing being. So, one of the first problems is first of all at the Institutional level… The judge for children is a specific judge. Collecting testimonies from a child is not like having an adult in front of you who can repeat it several times. So, if the child’s speech is not collected in time, the child may forget at any moment. Therefore, this question of training is necessary and this at the level of all the actors. The same is true for the officers of the judicial police (OPJ) and the lawyers who are responsible for collecting the children’s testimonies or assisting them,” explained Me Thierno Souleymane Barry.
In addition, this lawyer also deplored the fact that minors in conflict with the law find themselves in the same prison as adults. Because, he believes that alongside these adults, there is a good chance that children will learn “banditry” before their release from prison. And, from this angle, he assures us that prison will only have served to produce evil instead of rehabilitation for better social reintegration.
“In Guinea, usually, when the child faces the justice system, it is incarceration that exists. While you have, for example, all the United Nations rules on the administration of juvenile justice… The goal is to ensure that the child does not serve a sentence, whatever the stage. And, if he must do so, open spaces must be provided for this purpose. With the prison system that we have, the sacrosanct principle that we have is the separation of children and adults. And, this principle is not respected to the letter. At the central house in Conakry, there is what is called the minor hold for boys. But, this is not the case for young girls. And even putting them together in the same central house is like putting a school at their disposal… We celebrate the month of June every year with colossal budgets. It is not bad to promote the rights of the child, but the main thing is to direct the means towards the concrete”, indicated Me Thierno Souleymane Barry.
Saidou Hady Diallo for Guineematin.com
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