In Senegal, national meetings of the justice sector opened this Tuesday and until June 4. Magistrates, lawyers, but also university professors, association leaders and former prisoners are called upon to look into the sector to identify dysfunctions and make proposals for improvements. At the opening, this May 28, the president of the country, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, stressed that it is not a question of ” inquisition trial ” but D'” a lucid debate ” to find ” set of solutions » to the problems of justice.
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With our correspondent in Dakar, Léa-Lisa Westerhoff
At Senegalfrom May 28 to June 4, 2024, 450 people – magistrates, lawyers, but also association leaders, university professors and former prisoners – came together to draw up a diagnosis of the justice sector, its malfunctions and make suggestions for improvements.
This is also what the President of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, said at the opening of these national meetings of the justice sector which are being held at the Diamniadio Conference Center, on the outskirts of Dakar.
No ” inquisition trial »
No witch hunt, inquisition trial “, but rather ” a lucid debate ” to find ” set of solutions » to the problems of justice. This is what President Bassirou Diomaye Faye wished at the opening of this major meeting. National meetings that he called for, from his first speech after his election.
Because six years after a first report which made proposals for reform, and after a particularly agitated pre-electoral period with numerous arrests which shook the sector, there is “ need for a profound overhaul of the judicial system », Estimated the President of Senegal.
Among the evils identified by the participants, there is the feeling of two-tier justice, very repressive for the poorest and variable geometry for those who have the means to defend themselves or those close to power. There is also the overcrowding of prisons, with too systematic recourse to long pre-trial detentions while awaiting trial. Also mentioned: the slowness of procedures, the lack of staff with too few magistrates (548 magistrates and only 460 clerks for more than 17 million inhabitants).
These are some of the subjects that the participants will examine in two commissions: one on reforms and the other on the modernization of the justice sector, in particular the digitalization of certain services.
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