OPPOSITION DISY has tabled a bill that would introduce juvenile courts to deal with the growing number of young offenders.
The bill follows an increase in cases of arson, break-ins, theft, and drug offences involving underage offenders, said DISY deputy Ionas Nicolaou.
“It is a crime to try minors and to treat them using sanctions provided by common criminal justice,” he said.
Nicolaou told the Cyprus Mail that sending minors to an adult jail with hardened criminals would only turn them into criminals. “Instead, we have to deal with the problem hands on and stop the increasing number of young offenders,” he said.
DISY has therefore recommended the introduction of juvenile courts to deal with cases involving young delinquents.
He said: “The recommendation of a juvenile court, which will bear responsibility for the procedure in minors’ cases, will contribute in modernising and co-ordinating the efforts and energies of all services, organs and authorities, that determine the education or re-education of underage offenders.”
The Social Services would work alongside the juvenile courts in order to help the minors and give them the support they need, he said. The purpose would be to rectify the delinquent behaviour and not to lock up offenders, turning them into criminals.
Nicolaou said the court would be made up one judge, who was not only had the necessary legal knowledge, but also had to have educational knowledge and the ability, experience and sensitivity in dealing with minors’ issues.
The court would be based on the principle of expediency rather than the principle of legality on which criminal law is based. This principle will give the court the discretion to decide when a trial should begin and to determine the trial procedure or interrupt the proceedings at any point, as opposed the principle of legality which is based on strictly adhering to the rules of law, said Nicolaou. These decisions will be made based on the best interest of the minor.
However, if passed, this bill will have repercussions on the current judicial system, which tries juvenile offenders as adults.
For example the Attorney-general’s office recently appealed a Paphos court’s decision to sentence a 17-year-old to two years imprisonment, suspended for three years, for stabbing a classmate in the back during a classroom brawl. The Attorney-general’s office has demanded a longer prison sentence with no suspension.
Nicolaou said this was an occasion where the boy in question should have been tried in a juvenile court. Adult courts should only be limited to cases were minors were repeat offenders, he said.
