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Summary: General overview of Liberia's national legal provisions on children's rights, including guidance on how to conduct further research.
National laws on children's rights Status of the CRC in national law Constitution: Chapter III of the Liberian Constitution lays out a number of rights provisions that apply regardless of age, but there are also a small number of provisions throughout the Constitution that explicitly address children's rights: Legislation: Liberia enacted a Children's Law in 2012 which covers a significant proportion of national children's rights legislation, but provisions relevant to children can be found in various Acts. Legislation of particular relevance to children includes, but is by no means limited to: Legal Research Case Law Case Law Research Compliance with the CRC In depth analysis The Committee also noted several areas of domestic law in which there was no legislation to address violations of children's rights. Specifically, the Committee urged the State to legislate to address the lack of regulation on adoption and to combat the prevalence of informal adoption. The Committee also called on the State to legislate to criminalise female genital mutilation and to prohibit corporal punishment in all settings. Among the areas of national law in need of substantial reform in order to bring it into compliance with the Convention was that related to the justice system. The Committee was critical of the gaps between the Children's Law and the Penal Code, the former which prohibits capital punishment and life imprisonment without parole, and the latter which may allow the application of such penalties to children. The Committee also urged the State to carry out reforms so as to address the over use of pre-trial detention, the poor conditions in detention, and the absence of a comprehensive system of juvenile courts. Current legal reform projects
International treaties must be domesticated through additional legislation in order to become part of the Liberian legal system. Section 2 of the Children's Law requires the progressive realisation of children's rights, including those laid out in international law subject to the availability of human organisational and economic resources. It is not clear whether this provision has allowed courts to apply the Convention on the Rights of the Child in court decisions and, if so, to what effect.
The Legislature of Liberia maintains a website with a page dedicated to legislation, but at the time of writing the texts of Acts were not available (http://legislature.gov.lr/legislation). The Constitution is available from the website of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/details.jsp?id=8556) and the Children's Law is available through the website of the Ministry of Gender and Development (http://mogdliberia.com/images/stories/pdf/children-law-as-passed-by-the-Senate-15-September-2011.pdf). The Liberia Legal Information Institute provides access to a variety of legal resources, including Codes, Legislative Acts and Executive Orders (http://www.liberlii.org/). The International Labour Organisation website, NATLEX, provides access to a selection of national legislation in English (http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex_browse.country?p_lang=en&p_country=LBR) as does the World Law Guide (http://www.lexadin.nl/wlg/legis/nofr/oeur/lxwelbi.htm). In addition, the GlobaLex initiative at New York University has published a guide to legal research in Liberia (http://www.nyulawglobal.org/Globalex/LIBERIA.htm) and the U.S. Law Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide/nations/liberia.php) and the World Legal Information Institute (http://www.worldlii.org/catalog/2692.html) both provide a selection of links to legal and governmental resources.
CRC Jurisprudence
Please contact CRIN if you are aware of any cases in national courts that reference the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Liberia Legal Information Institute maintains a database of the decisions of the Liberian Supreme Court in English (http://www.liberlii.org/lr/cases/LRSC/)
In its Concluding Observations of 2012, the Committee on the Rights of the Child welcomed the introduction of the Children's Law, but remained concern that the State had not undertaken a complete review of legislation with a view to harmonising national law with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Committee raised concerns that a number of provisions within legislation and customary law are not consistent with the Convention, particularly those relating to the minimum age for marriage, adoption and juvenile justice.
The Committee also raised a large number of more specific concerns with regards to areas of national law that were incompatible with the Convention. The Committee raised concerns about the widespread gender-based discrimination in customary laws and called on the State to repeal all such discriminatory laws. Of particular concern was the need to reform discriminatory laws on the minimum age for marriage which permitted girls to enter into a customary marriage from the age of 16 or from 15 under the revised Rules and Regulations Governing the Hinterland of Liberia.
Please contact CRIN if you are aware of any current legal reform projects.