This July, members of all sectors of Burundi’s criminal justice system will get the chance to have an open discussion about the problem of pre-trial detention.

Professionals with experience in all spheres (6 lawyers, 4 judiciary police officers, 4 prison officials, 2 magistrates and 2 prosecutors) will meet on the 30th at the Terra Nova conference centre in Bubanza Province to examine the nature of the problem, consider strategies to tackle it and make personal commitments to ensure a reduction of the number of pre-trial detainees in Bubanza Province and beyond.

Pre-trial detention is a serious issue in Burundi; a shortage of lawyers in the country (there are only about 100 for a total population of 9 million) and a general lack of respect for the principle of reasonable delay–often because of a deficiency in court resources–mean that Burundi’s prisons are extremely overcrowded. To get an idea of the scale, the national prison system has an occupancy level of 225%; 65% of detainees nationally are on remand and in some prisons, as in Mpimba in Bujumbura, this rises to 80%.

Above: Lawyer Janvier Ncamatwi playing the Prosecutor during the first mock-trial of IBJ’s criminal defense training in Burundi in June 2009. (Photo by Nathalie Mohadjer)

This IBJ-hosted roundtable discussion will be moderated by Janvier NCAMATWI, a lawyer and formerly a judge at military court. Janvier, who has participated in IBJ last defender training in June 2009, will be, in addition to encouraging participants to share their ideas and experiences, presenting his own innovative solution on how to address the issue.

This focuses on bringing courts for detainees on remand to prisons to avoid delays, as the difficulties simply in transporting prisoners to other locations is a real barrier to expedite trials.
The roundtable will be accompanied by a poster campaign focused on informing the Bubanza population of their legal rights.