– With logistic and technical supports from MONUSCO Justice Correction unit, the high courts of Kisangani and Yangambi, Tshopo province organized mobile courts hearings, starting 19 November 2015 in the prison court of Kisangani.

The mobile court hearings would help to markedly reduce the prison population in Kisangani, built to accommodate six hundreds inmates only; unfortunately this number is now exceeded; it is home to nearly one thousand two hundreds inmates in a territory where cholera is reported; the mobile court hearings would also help to fight unnecessary lengthy arbitrary detentions in the jurisdiction of the High Court of Yangambi, situated over 128 Km from Kisangani.

Those detainees are held in Kisangani for Yangambi jurisdiction was established without any plan for a prison to be built there.

Over one hundred cases out of one hundred forty four were addressed by the high courts of Kisangani and Yangambi during the mobile court hearing scheduled to end on 2 December 2015. The courts appeal to the Congolese Government to provide the Tshopo province with judges to keep up with the Momentum.

Guy Karema