01 04 14 DR Congo: No More Delays for Justice
(Kinshasa, April 1, 2014) – The Democratic Republic of Congo
should adopt a draft law establishing specialized mixed chambers for
trying serious rights abuses, 146 Congolese and international
organizations said in a joint declaration
today. Parliament should also pass a draft law during the current
parliamentary session to incorporate the International Criminal Court
(ICC) treaty into Congolese law. The parliamentary session began on
March 15, 2014.
President Joseph Kabila and the Congolese
government have recently pledged to strengthen the country’s capacity to
tackle impunity for atrocities against civilians. The proposed
specialized mixed chambers within the national judicial system would
focus on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and benefit
initially from the presence of non-Congolese staff with expertise in
this field. The ICC implementing legislation would bring the ICC
definitions of these crimes under Congolese law and regulate cooperation
with the court.
“Establishing specialized mixed chambers
and adopting the ICC implementing legislation will increase the capacity
of national courts to finally bring to justice those responsible for
unspeakable atrocities in Congo,” said Justine Masika Bihamba, president
of Synergie des Femmes, a network of Congolese women’s rights
organizations in eastern Congo. “The Congolese authorities should now
turn rhetoric into reality and take concrete steps for justice.”
The
vast majority of those responsible for massacres, rapes, torture,
forced recruitment of child soldiers, and burning of homes in Congo over
the past two decades, especially in the eastern part of the country,
have not been punished. While the two draft laws have been under
consideration for several years, concrete advances have been made in the
past several months that make their passage during this session of
parliament a realistic possibility. The advances include revision by the
government of the draft law on the chambers and adoption of the ICC implementing legislation by a parliament committee in December 2013.
“Repeated cycles of violence and impunity in Congo have inflicted horrific suffering on the Congolese people,” said Ida Sawyer,
senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch. “A new mechanism within
the national judicial system is urgently needed to ensure those
responsible for the worst crimes are finally brought to justice – and to
send a warning to other warlords and army commanders that serious
crimes will not go unpunished.”
To read the joint declaration, please visit: www.hrw.org/news/2014/04/01/
To read a Human Rights Watch note on the proposal to create Specialized mixed chambers, please visit:
www.hrw.org/news/2014/04/01/
For more information, please contact:
In Kinshasa, for Human Rights Watch, Ida Sawyer (English, French): +243-81-33-78-478 (mobile); or +243-99-86-75-565 (mobile); or sawyeri@hrw.org. Follow on Twitter @ida_sawyer
In Stuttgart, for Human Rights Watch, Geraldine Mattioli-Zeltner (English, French): +49-151-4650-8928 (mobile); or mattiog@hrw.org. Follow on Twitter @gemattioli
In Goma, for Synergie des Femmes, Justine Masika Bihamba (French): +243-99-548-4965 (mobile)
In Kinshasa, for the Congolese Association for Access to Justice, Georges Kapiamba (French): +243-81-404-3641 (mobile) ; or kapiambag@gmail.com
In Paris, for FIDH, Florent Geel (English, French): +33-6-48-05-92-23 (mobile)