5,000 prisoners benefit from presidential amnesty

Justice Minister said on Monday that he will listen personally to the concerns of lawyers on the profession’s draft law, which was approved by Parliament last week, as he will meet today with representative of the 15 organizations of lawyers at the national level, to discuss the confusion that took place in the profession’s law at the level of the Legal Committee of the National People’s Assembly.

A statement issued by the Minister of Justice, Mohammed Charfi, came after overseeing a ceremony on honouring prisoners who got the baccalaureate and the secondary education’s graduation in 2013 at the institution of re-education in Harrache, Algiers.

“Efforts that have been made in the framework of justice reform, considering the high number of successful in the baccalaureate and intermediate education in the punitive institutions at the national level, reaching about 700 successful this year, one of the most important results of reforms within the prison reached the highest rate in this year’s baccalaureate in penal institutions with 16.02 obtained by a prisoner in “Babar” detention in Khenchla,eastern Algeria, in the Management and Economics Division”.

“The number of successful candidates in the baccalaureate in penal institutions at the national level reaches 720, while the highest rate in average education reaches 16.30 in the punitive institution in Laghouat,western Algiers, as the prisoner “T.Abdelghani” obtained the highest rate in the Division of Arts and Philosophy with 12:41 in the punitive detention of El Harrache”.

“More than 5,000 prisoners have benefited from presidential amnesty on the occasion of Independence Day, July 5, and will include both those who obtained the baccalaureate and intermediate education. 800 people out of 14000 who benefited from the amnesty last year returned to crime. This number that indicates the success of reforms”.

Justice Minister together with all of the General Prosecutor of Algiers Judicial Council, Zaghmati Belkacem, and Minister of Solidarity Souad Bendjaballah, as well as the director of the re-education institution in Harrache, and Director General of the Department of Corrections and Reintegration Mokhtar Felioune, and representative of the EU Commission and Chairman of the Advisory Committee for Human Rights, Farouk Ksentini, honouring prisoners who succeeded in the baccalaureate exam, as well as middle school education, through honouring directors of penal institutions which have the highest success rate of success in Bouni detention in Annaba, eastern Algiers, with 118 prisoners, and in middle school education in Boussouf, Constantine, eastern Algeria, with 226 successful candidates.