On 4 and 5 October 2018, Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) organised in the National Assembly of the Central-African Republic (CAR), in Bangui, a Technical Seminar on Strengthening the Legal Framework of the Fight against Impunity.

This workshop, which was supported by Honourable Karim Meckassoua, Speaker of the National Assembly, aimed at gathering experts of the Central-African criminal justice system and the elected representatives of the people in order to assess which legislative measures the latter could undertake to improve the law applicable to proceedings related to the most serious crimes.

This technical seminar was indeed a response to the acknowledgement of PGA Members, under the leadership of Honourable Béatrice Epaye, Chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Chairwoman of PGA’s National Group in CAR, that the ordinary Central-African courts would play a key role in fighting impunity on the national territory and that it was up to the National Assembly to ensure that these tribunals had all the necessary tools to accomplish this important mission.

After a welcome message from Honourable Laurent Ngon-Baba, Chairman of the Institutions, Democracy, Judicial and Administrative Affairs, and PGA Member, Honourable Karim Meckassoua, and Mr. Flavien Mbata, Minister of Justice, more than twenty Central-African parliamentarians listened and exchanged with experts from civil society and the criminal justice system, in order to identify the positive features and the gaps in the existing criminal law used to investigate and prosecute alleged perpetrators of grave human rights violations.

In the area of justice and the fight against impunity, the National Assembly has examined and adopted many laws: on the High Court of Justice, the Military Justice Code, the Statute of the Special Criminal Court… I encourage PGA’s National Group to begin a new project with the creation of a private member’s bill on strengthening the legal framework of the fight against impunity. Honourable Karim Meckassoua, Speaker of the National Assembly

Equipped with draft bills reforming the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, prepared by PGA, the parliamentarians in attendance discussed the legislative measures which could prove essential in allowing the Central-African courts to bring justice, alongside the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Special Criminal Court (SCC), to the many victims of international crimes.

At the end of this seminar, the legislators adopted an Action Plan in which they committed, inter alia, to constitute a drafting committee to ensure that the Central-African Criminal Code contains all relevant crimes under international law and to open discussions with the government so that the necessary reforms of legal aid and witnesses and victims’ protection proceed promptly.