Government spokesman Mustapha Baitas announced on Thursday that work on alternative sentences was underway and that it was used, among other things, to reduce the number of pre-trial detentions.
“Regarding pre-trial detention, the government has always wanted to lower this number, that is why the law on alternative sentences which was scheduled last week, intervened”, he declared in a press conference following the government council.
Mustapha Baitais, who was responding to a question about the penal code and pre-trial detention, affirmed that after a study, it turned out that the number of pre-trial detentions remained “significant” and that, moreover, “the majority of people sentenced are for terms of less than one year”, hence the need to find alternative solutions.
To solve this problem, it is not enough to simply change the penal policy, he argued, “but it turns out that a large part of the solutions are in the penal policy, and that is why the government came up with this first law” which is currently the subject of in-depth analysis and study, indicated the spokesperson to justify recourse to the reform of the penal code.
Wanting to avoid criticism, especially from the opposition, which does not want the penal code to be amended, Baitas explained that this study of the law is supposed to solve the problem of the number of pretrial detentions without affecting “to the important and known constants in the law”.
During this press briefing, the government spokesperson also announced that discussions on the reform of the penal code will be launched in the coming weeks during meetings of the government council.
He warned, however, that it is not a question of “small texts, but large, complicated laws” citing for example the civil code which is around 300 pages, hence the need to take time to study it thoroughly. .