Uruguay: OMCT’S juvenile justice recommendations on the UPR pre-session on Uruguay

Geneva, 27/11/13- Today OMCT and its national partner in
Uruguay IELSUR, with the support of the Committee on Rights of the Child in
Uruguay and Save the Children, have presented its recommendations in the
pre-session meeting to the Universal Periodic Review of Uruguay. OMCT has highlighted the importance of
substantial legislative and policy changes concerning deprivation of liberty of
children in Uruguay, and the need to ensure accountability and non-repetition
of acts of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment against children.
The following are OMCT’s
recommendations on Juvenile Justice:
- Measures should be taken to
substantially improve child protection standards in the current legislation and
to eliminate legal initiatives that go against international standards, such as
the national referendum planned for 2014. Additionally the state of Uruguay
should derogate the laws approved between 2008 and 2013 that affect the rights
and safeguards of children, especially art.5 of the law n° 18.315[1],
the law n° 18.777[2]
and the law n° 19.055.[3]
- The State of Uruguay
must guarantee that the juvenile justice system is in accordance with
international standards, using deprivation of liberty only as a measure of last
resort, for the minimum necessary period, and always
taking into account the best interest of the child. Alternative measures to
deprivation of liberty should be promoted aiming a full reintegration of the
child into society.
- The
Government of Uruguay should put in place safeguards for the protection of
children deprived of their liberty and guarantees that all allegations
of torture are object of a meaningful, diligent, impartial and transparent
investigation in order to ensure accountability and non-repetition.
- We recommend that the National Human
Rights Institution, which is the governmental body responsible for implementing
the National Preventive Mechanism against Torture, to create a working group
for the protection of children against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment,
with a special focus on children deprived of their liberty, including in its
activities frequent monitoring visits to juvenile detention centres.
For more information and other
recommendations, please see attachments.
[1] Law concerning
the application of police procedures to children.
[2] Law that increases preventive detention from
60 to 90 days.
[3] Law that imposes
a minimum period for deprivation of liberty of one year to certain types of
crimes committed by children, going against the exceptional use of deprivation
of liberty.