Bahrain Mirror: The Parliament will soon discuss a draft bill proposed by the government on the Youth Criminal Justice Act. One of the most prominent articles mentioned in the draft states that if the offence is punishable by death, it is reduced to temporary imprisonment or at least one-year prison term, but if its penalty is life imprisonment or temporary imprisonment, it is reduced to a misdemeanor.

"If the offence constitutes a misdemeanor, and the penalty has a special minimum, the judge shall not abide by the assessment of the penalty, and if the penalty is imprisonment and a fine as well, the judge shall only issue one of the both sentences, and if the penalty is an unfettered minimum, the judge may issue a fine instead."

The draft also said "If a child over 15 years old is sentenced to prison, the competent Criminal Justice Court must monitor the progress of the child based on a report submitted to the court by the reform and rehabilitation center, immediately after serving half of the sentence, in order to decide whether the punishment will continue or be replaced by one of the measures set out in the articles referred to in the third paragraph of this article."

The bill mentioned that children cannot be placed, detained, or imprisoned with other adults in one place, and the implementation of the, detention or imprisonment shall take into account classification of children by age, gender, type of crime and duration of punishment.

Arabic Version