Algeria: Experiences in Algeria with the use of the CRC in legal proceedings

Abstract

Algeria ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in December 1992 and took steps to facilitate its implementation by publishing the text of this landmark document in the Official Gazette as required by the constitution. These developments can be taken as a sign of the state’s commitment to see the status of Algerian children change and become compatible with the standards envisaged by the CRC. In particular, publishing the text was an important step in facilitating implementation of the new norms, since Algeria’s constitution and constitutional jurisprudence provide for the superiority of this instrument after its ratification and publication. This chapter presents an example of a State party to the Convention in which the Sharia law system is juxtaposed with the civil law system and in which the former has supremacy in family matters: Sharia law prevails over any other given legal norm that would contradict its text and spirit. In such circumstances, then, what would be the faith of the ratified Convention? Can lawyers and magistrates invoke its provisions as a legal basis in litigation and implement the rights of the child as expressed by the Convention within the framework of state obligations? It is submitted that the CRC is either not utilised or is of a limited application as a legal instrument in Algeria’s domestic litigation.