TIRANA, Dec 17 /ATA/ Minister of Justice, Etilda Gjonaj, participated on Thursday in the National Conference entitled “Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System in Albania” with the broad participation of all actors working on a daily basis to guarantee the rights of children.
Present at this conference were Kristin Melsom, Deputy Director General at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Roberto De Bernardi, UNICEF Albania Representative, Anila Meço, Director of Save the Children in Albania, Iris Luarasi and others.
Gjonaj said that this is a momentous day for juvenile justice because for the first time professionals of justice system, the court, prosecution, probation service, penitentiary directorate and police will inter-act with one another through integrated system of juvenile criminal justice data.
This system, she said, “will guarantee for the first time improvement of access to justice for juveniles, and cross-institutional coordination, in order to provide immediate solutions to cases when juveniles are denied access to justice, are subject to abuse or violations of rights, or when the procedural guarantees provided in the legislation are not applied. ”
“The system enables data collection, aggregation, good administration of juvenile justice, as well as real-time monitoring but also unification and computerization of these data, in order to build a data base that helps us all analyze and improve juvenile criminal justice policies. Electronic data will be updated on each stage of criminal proceedings until the execution of the final court decision,” the Minister added.
Gjonaj said that “this is one of the efforts of Albanian government at this new phase of criminal justice, which regulates the principles and standards for a child -friendly justice in three roles perpetrator, victim, eyewitness.”
“Child-friendly justice is one of the most sensitive and important issues as children are the categories that represent the link between society today and tomorrow,” she said.
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