Justice Ministry mulls activating alternatives procedures in child law

CAIRO - 11 March 2018: The Justice Ministry organized 12 workshops to activate alternative procedures judges can resort to when a 15-year-old child commits a crime.

At a rountable, the ministry's judicial protection department head Khaled el Abraq said the new alternative procedures reported in the child law include reprimand, rehabilitation, mandatory duties, judicial testing, and public benefit activities.

The roundtable was organized by the Social Solidarity Ministry in cooperation with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Other alternatives also include placing the juvenile in a social care institution or in a specialized hospital, he added.

Though any child accused of a crime should be sent to a juvenile court, some children are tried as adults because of shortcomings in the age assessment process that sometimes misleads the court, he added, noting that these shortcomings need to be addressed and fully corrected.