Burkina Faso’s lawyers took to the streets of Ouagadougou on Monday to denounce what they called the shutdown for months of the country’s judicial system, APA can report.
At the end of the march from the Ouagadougou Palace of Justice to the Ministry of Justice, the demonstrators handed a letter of protest to the minister.
“This complete shutdown (of the judiciary) is explained by a conflict between the body of the Prison Security Guard (PSG) and the State since October 2018, on the one hand, and the clerks since 19 April 2019 on the other hand” said the president of the Burkinabe Bar Association Paulin Salambere.
According to him, “there are, today, 808 detainees awaiting trial, 1640 indicted detainees whose cases are under investigation and 3641 convicts imprisoned and the enforcement of sentences is hampered by dysfunctions”.
He also cited the impossibility of carrying out interrogations in the offices of the investigating judges due to the impossibility of bringing the suspects and extracting the detainees, the detention of accused persons concerned by the proceedings. flagrant offenses and indictments for months, sometimes exceeding twelve months, and the subsequent freezing of complaints in the judicial police units.
For the president of the Bar, “it is up to the state to take all the necessary legal, material and managerial measures to guarantee and make effective functional and permanent justice for the Burkinabè”.
ALK/te/pn/as/APA