The maintenance of the penalty of forced labor in Congolese judicial law in front of the constitution of February 18/2006, arbitrary or impunity?

Abstract

With regard to the provisions of article 16 paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Constitution of 18 February 2006 and the judgment rendered by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Democratic Republic of Congo on 19 August 2011 under R. CONST 166, it is clear that the penalty of forced labour has been extirpated from the Congolese legal arsenal and can no longer be applied by the Courts and Tribunals because no jurisdiction has been given the power by the legislature to make it.  However, it is observed in practice by the courts and tribunals that persons prosecuted and convicted of the offence of embezzlement of public funds with the penalty of forced labour serve this sentence in prison, whereas article 6 bis, paragraph 3, of the Congolese Penal Code, Book 1, prohibits the assimilation and confusion of the penalty of forced labour with that of penal servitude. This practice constitutes both impunity and arbitrariness, which must be banished at all costs through the promulgation of the law on the Abolition of the Penalty of Forced Labour.