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Strengthen child justice system—commission
By
Joseph Langa - 25-09-2002 |
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The Malawi Law Commission has called for an urgent strengthening of the Child Justice System to reduce levels of child offences and to divert children from a life of crime, the commission’s chairperson for Child Rights Legislation Commission Justice Rizine Mzikamanda said on Friday.
Opening a stakeholders panel discussion on child rights in Lilongwe, Mzikamanda said the current child justice system in the country is riddled
with problems, which need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
He cited delays, large numbers of cases involving children, failure by duty bearers in the child justice systems to comply with existing laws and lack of supervised community based intervention programmes aimed at child offenders as some of the problems facing the current system.
“Criminal justice should be at its most efficient when dealing with children in order to reduce levels of offending and divert child offenders from a life of crime. We must accept that the law should not treat a child in the same way it treats an adult,” he said.
Added Mzikamanda: “While we talk tough about crime we must bear in mind to treat children with compassion and with kind firmness.”
“We need to be tough on child offending and their causes. The principle aim of the child justice system should be to prevent offending or re-offending,” he said.
Mzikamanda said one of the possible ways of strengthening the child justice system is to identify ways of reinforcing the duty of stakeholders in the system to play their part efficiently and effectively for earlier intervention.
“By intervening early and effectively before crime becomes a habit we can stop today’s child offenders from becoming tomorrow’s career criminals. Research has revealed that children who show signs of criminal behaviour at an early age are persistent offenders,” he said.
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