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Summary: Norberto Liwski, former Vice-President of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, adds his voice to the debate raging in Argentina over the reform of the juvenile justice system and the proposal to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 16-14.
[BUENOS AIRES] - In the past few days, following an aberrant crime committed in the town of Lanús, and in the context of social turmoil, the media has again stirred up a contradictory, simplistic and fallacious controversy around the relationship between lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility and the climate of insecurity resulting from criminal acts. The debate about whether there is a need for a new Juvenile Justice law adapted to the principles and provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which forms part of Argentinian law, is beyond question, as neither the CRC, nor other international treaties, suggest or recommend lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility. In February 2007, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child approved and informed States Partes of its General Comment No. 10 on “The rights of the child in juvenile justice”. The chapter on the minimum age of criminal responsibility states clearly that the international trend must be to promote raising this age. The minimum age in Argentina has been 16 since the beginning of the 1950s; it was lowered only during the last military dictatorship in the context of State terrorism. The parliamentary and social debate about the need to update the juvenile justice law must, without doubt, be held within a rights framework and with a view to constructing young people's citizenship. In other words, it must strike a harmonious balance between the exercise of responsibilities and rights. From this standpoint, starting this debate with the issue of lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility is not only a technical error, it also shifts attention away from where it should be focused. Any vision of juvenile justice must be entrenched in guarantees of due process and the complex scenarios of the daily lives of millions of adolescents in our country. Large swathes of young people in big urban centres, and rural areas too, pass their daily lives in situations of social exclusion and are, in many cases, trapped and enslaved by criminal networks. This exacerbates the degradation of their dignity and their isolation from society, and brings on violence. We must reflect deeply on the circumstances of social exclusion of thousands of adolescents and how this relates to the violence which constitutes part of their daily lives. Penal mechanisms alone can contribute little with no foundation in public policy strategies based on social inclusion and the construction of young people's citizenship. We must ask ourselves what is happening in the media and in institutions to instil in the mind of a society anxious for peaceful coexistence a direct relationship between lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility and the achievement of greater individual or collective security. Without doubt, the solidarity of victims of crime and the legitimate exercise of the right to demand more and better safety strategies must not cloud the complexity of the problem, to which the only effective solution is to improve State policies on social justice and strengthen democratic institutions. Further information