asia/world 15/05/08 India passes law to try juvenile criminals as adults - Older teens who commit violent crimes will no longer be tried as minors

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India passes law to try juvenile criminals as adults

Older teens who commit violent crimes will no longer be tried as minors

People walk near buses used to ferry inmates from jail to court in Delhi (AFP Photo)

• ucanews.com reporter, Delhi
• India
• May 8, 2015

•  

The Indian parliament Thursday passed a bill allowing children between the ages of 16 and 18 to be tried as adults for "heinous" offenses, a move rights activists and opposition parties say is insensitive to the rights of children.

Amid criticism, the government made a desperate attempt in parliament to convince members that it has tried to strike a "fine balance" to ensure that no injustice was done to children. Heinous offenses are defined as violent crimes such as rape and murder. 

The new bill — the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill 2014 — replace a law passed under the same in 2000. Apart from judicial measures, it also seeks to streamline adoption procedures for orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children, and offers rehabilitation for children who need it. 

The bill provides for establishing Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB) and Child Welfare Committees (CWC) in each district. Theses boards conduct a preliminary inquiry to determine whether a juvenile offender is to be sent for rehabilitation or be tried as an adult. The welfare committees will provide care and protection.

"I don't want the children to be arrested, and no mother would want it, no member would want it," the Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said in response to criticism raised during the two-day debate. 

Justifying the need for the new law, she said according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), around 28,000 juveniles had committed various crimes in 2013 and of them, 3,887 had committed violent crimes.

Opposition members expressed apprehension that the provision to try children as adults will lead to violation of rights of children by the new law, which was being enacted against the backdrop of the involvement of a minor in the 2012 gang rape and murder of a women in Delhi.

The teenager was just a few months short of 18 when he and five others gang raped and assaulted a 23-year-medical student in a moving bus. She later died at a hospital.

Convicted of rape, the minor was given the maximum punishment of three years imprisonment. The lighter punishment sparked off a debate on whether the legal system was being soft on young offenders and whether criminals are abusing such lacuna.

But the opposition Congress party said the law has failings.

"Today is a black day for this parliament in terms of modern jurisprudence. I must sadly accuse the government of having chosen political expediency over justice," Shashi Tharoor, a former diplomat and Congress party lawmaker, said in the Lower House of Parliament.

"We cannot hold the child responsible for a crime before first providing him the most basic rights given to the child," Tharoor said.

Tharoor and other lawmakers who opposed the bill pointed out that the country has some 472 million children and the percentage of criminals among them was negligible, while those committing violent crimes was even less.

"So, we are talking of a handful of cases in this country, according to our national crime statistics. How can we pass a law that will jeopardize the other 99.98 percent children in this country," Tharoor asked 

Adhir Ranjan Choudhury of the Congress party said the law violates international standards. The provision of trying a juvenile as an adult contravenes the UN convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires all signatory countries like India to treat every child under the age of 18 years as equal.

"Twenty five years ago, India ratified [the] convention and joined the world in making a promise to protect and promote the rights of the children. With this, India is in a serious danger of going back on their promise," he said.

People working for juvenile justice like Fr Johny Mathew say a blanket law treating each accused teenager the same way may be dangerous because it fails to look at the specific situation of individual children.

Mathew, a lawyer and member of the Juvenile Justice Board of Karnataka state, said every child has a basic right to education and loving parenting besides the right to food, shelter and clothing.

"We need to ascertain if a child has become a criminal because of the lack of these basic rights," he said.

The government and society also "cannot wash its hands from providing these basic rights to the children and simply look at them as adult criminals”, Mathew said.

Some people like parliamentarian Asauddin Owaisi, a Muslim leader, believe police could misuse the law to target children from poor and minority communities.

"We will not be surprised if tomorrow the law will be imposed on Dalit, tribal and Muslim children because you are giving an opportunity to the man in uniform," he said.

David Gamlin, a social activist in Arunachal Pradesh, said "if children are not permitted to vote, drive or marry, as they are deemed immature, incapable of making decisions, why then, is government so adamant on passing a bill which can try children as adults?”