Government Approves Bill On Electronic Monitoring Bracelet

Government approved, on Wednesday, the draft law on the electronic bracelet for the punishment outside the penal institution.

The draft law includes provisions that are related to electronic surveillance through the bracelet, which comes into effect immediately after the law is passed through legal procedures and issuing it in the Official Gazette.

Justice Minister, Tayeb Louh, identified the persons that are involved in the proceedings as persons who are sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment or those who remained three years in their sentences will benefit from this procedure at the request of the judge who applys the sanctions or at the request of the prisoner, so that Algeria, as announced by Louh, is the first Arab country that applies this system and the second in Africa after South Africa.

During the course of his supervision of the process of launching the baccalaureate exams in the penal institution for re-education of Al-Harrache, in which 97 prisoners sit for the exams, the Minister affirmed that the new adopted technology uses the prisoner’s fingerprint to identify his/her identity in the framework of institutional modernization, as it carries the prisoner’s data and all information that are related to him/her.

“This technology will be circulated to all penal institutions to avoid any defect or falsification of identity or impersonation, contrary to what was done through the card and serial number”.

During his visit to Algiers Harrache prison, Louh stopped at the new lawyers’ courtroom which includes 19 rooms, for lawyers’ visits, which, he said, is a right of prisoners and are special rooms in accordance with international standards for respecting the rights of the defense.

Head of the justice sector said that in the fight against cheating and dealing with cyber crime and baccalaureate leaks, the National Commission for the Prevention and Combat of Crimes with Technological Means, which operates under the tutelage of his ministry and that is headed by a judge, has worked with the security services for weeks for a well-prepared plan to address any diversion of baccalaureate subjects.

“This plan allows to address any leaks in time and determine the identity of the person who leaks subjects to take the judicial action

in this process”.

Over 42433 prisoners are educated in many ways, including correspondence, fight against literacy and university education, as 34037 prisoners joined education by correspondence and 7246 joined literacy departments. In the field of rehabilitation of training, the penal institutions registered 37764 prisoners, while the number of workers among the imprisoned persons reached 761, of whom 50 were imprisoned in Algiers Harrache prison.

The minister highlighted the increase in the number of students who pass the baccalaureate graduation from year to year, according to the official figures. 

The number of students reached 3710 candidates for the academic year 2016-2017 instead of 3257 candidates for the last year.