The Special Criminal Court (SCC) of the Central African Republic, a hybrid court composed of national and international magistrates, opened its first trial on April 19, 2022 in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. The jurisdiction is responsible for judging war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since January 2003. The date, explains on the Court’s website, “corresponds to the start of the violence that put an end to the national dialogue that began in 2002 and led to the coup d’etat of March 2003″. “Populations (Central African) have since been victims of several waves of serious violations, in particular those from March 2013 to December 2015 between the groups (rebels) Seleka and anti-Balaka.”
While the SCC is praised by some as a model of justice to be exported to other countries in civil war or recovering from it, others doubt its effectiveness as this trial, that of three alleged war criminals without significance, was slow to open. Issa Sallet Adoum, Ousman Yaouba and Tahir Mahamat, members of one of the most powerful armed groups that have terrorized populations for years – the 3Rs (Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation) – are on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in May 2019. They are accused of the massacre of 46 civilians in villages in the northwest of the country.
A particular context
“The situation of the CPS is special, it is a jurisdiction that works while there are still clashes and our detractors forget it”, told AFP the Central African President of the Court, Michel Landry Louanga. Spc is a “special jurisdiction”, explains to franceinfo Africa Roland Adjovi, consultant in international law who worked at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
“Jurisdictions (like Spc) are created on the occasion of a conflict”, he specifies. But the formula of the CPS remains new “even if there are similarities with the Extraordinary Chambers in Cambodia”. It was created in 2015 by the Central African government with the sponsorship of the United Nations. It is not comparable to the ICTR which was set up by the United Nations Security Council and which judged the first persons presumed guilty of genocide in the country. Nor is the court a special international court like the one set up, for example, in Sierra Leone (Special Court for Sierra Leone) and which tried, after the civil war, the crimes committed during the conflict. This jurisdiction resulted from an agreement between the United Nations and the Sierra Leonean government.
An unprecedented jurisdiction
Unlike these bodies, SPC is “a jurisdiction that is part of Central African law”insists Roland Adjovi, although it is made up of national and international judges and prosecutors from France, Togo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “The ICC (International Penal Court) can never judge everyone. Ordinary courts in the Central African Republic are not able to judge people. The country is at war and a large number of people from all sides participated. This internationalized tribunal offers the possibility of providing a judicial solution at the national level”analyzes Roland Adjovi.
SPC was officially installed on June 30, 2017 “with the swearing in of six first magistrates: an international special prosecutor and five national magistrates, appointed to the prosecution, the investigating chamber and the indictment chamber”, can we read on the institution’s website. “SPC Act (from June 3, 2015) gives it a life of five years, ‘renewable if needed.’“ The inaugural session of the SPC was held on 22 October 2018 and this day has been chosen “as (his) official date of birth”. The jurisdiction has an annual budget of 12 million euros, mainly provided by the UN, the European Union and the United States.
“The ambition of the CPS, in the long term, is to try more people and to improve the Central African national judiciary”, says Roland Adjovi. A “good idea” for the expert who nevertheless points out the fact that “the political contingencies in which the CPS operates” hinder him in his missions. In a country bloodied by decades of civil wars, the last of which, which began 9 years ago, continues today, the Court had to overcome a trying obstacle course.
Hindered by politics
“The CPS faces obstacles erected by the authorities, perfectly illustrated by the Hassan Bouba case.”, deplores Nicolas Tiangaye, lawyer and spokesperson for the Opposition Coalition-2020 (COD-2020), which brings together almost all the unarmed opposition parties. The opening of this first trial − which is not advertised by the government while international NGOs and foreign lawyers call it a“historical” − comes five months after the arrest by CPS police officers of the Minister of Livestock and ex-rebel leader Hassan Bouba in his ministry in Bangui.
If the CPS had not specified the reasons for his indictment, the American NGO The Sentry, which specializes in tracking down the dirty money that finances wars, claimed that he was directly responsible for the attack on a camp. displaced persons in November 2018, which resulted in the death of at least 112 villagers, including 19 children. A few days later, he was exfiltrated from prison by the gendarmes before returning to his ministry, a few hundred meters from the CPS, and being decorated by the Head of State with the National Order of Merit.
“Judges’ decisions must be enforced by other entitiesalso denounces Alice Banens, legal adviser for Amnesty International. There are at least 25 arrest warrants but neither Minusca nor the Central African authorities are executing them even though it is part of their mandate.”
“The real question now is whether our warrants, including those for big fish, will be carried out”, wonders for his part the president of the CPS, Michel Landry Louanga. The CPS is also afflicted by faulty logistics which did not help in its extremely long establishment: the last two foreign judges took up their duties in February and “Key SPC positions remain unfilled and difficult to fill“, deplores the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a recent report.