Mali Assessment

1. FAIR JUSTICE

1.1 Judicial system capability.
The judiciary is competent but not impartial, although it has the capacity to manage the judicial functions.
The detention time is often greatly exceeded before the prisoner should be tried.[1]

Lengthy pretrial detention was a problem due to lengthy trial procedures, large numbers of detainees, judicial inefficiency, corruption, and staff shortages. In extreme cases, individuals remained in prison for several years before their cases came to trial. Judges set provisions for bail; however, many individuals lacked the financial resources needed to meet these provisions. Approximately 67 percent of the prison population consisted of persons awaiting trial.[2]

The constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary; however, the executive branch continued to exert influence over the judicial system, and corruption and limited resources affected the fairness of some trials. Domestic human rights groups alleged that there were instances of bribery and influence peddling in the courts. ²

1.2 Legal assistance to persons living in poverty.
The poor can have legal counsel, but they must work to pay their defense lawyers after their release. There is no para legal system in police stations. After the deposition of the charge, the person charged is held for a normal three days, after which that person is released, unless transferred to the prison earlier. The judge at this time is informed of the case and the accused can hire a lawyer through his parents, or his friends and acquaintances.
There is a social service to the central prison in Bamako, which provides advice to prisoners at a time when they must go to trial.¹

Detainees are brought before an independent judiciary and have the right to a lawyer of their choice or a state-provided lawyer if indigent; however, administrative backlogs and an insufficient number of lawyers often prevented prompt access to legal representation and produced substantial trial delays. Detainees were allowed prompt access to family members.²

1.3 Justice for women and juveniles.
The law criminalizes rape; however, only a small percentage of rape cases were prosecuted and most cases of rape were not reported. There is no law specifically prohibiting spousal rape, but law enforcement officials stated that the criminal laws against rape applied to spousal rape. Domestic violence against women, including spousal abuse, was a problem. Most cases went unreported. Spousal abuse is a crime, but police were reluctant to enforce laws against or intervene in cases of domestic violence. ²

The law prohibits trafficking in children, but does not address trafficking in adults, and there were reports that women and children were trafficked to, from, and within the country. Persons, including children, were trafficked between Mali and other West African countries, including Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, Nigeria, and Mauritania for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. In many cases parents in rural areas entrusted their children to traffickers, falsely believing that the children would be provided with economic or educational opportunities. Children were trafficked for agricultural work, domestic servitude, begging, gold mining, and prostitution.²

1.4 Unfair treatment by discrimination.
There are discriminatory judgments on all issues, such as race, ethnic origin, sex,  religion, political views, economic status, or any other social condition.¹

1.5 Arbitrary or severe penalties.
Arbitrary or severe penalties are very often in cases where it is an alien who is faced with an aboriginal or a rich man to poor man. There is often excessive imprisonment in view of the law.
The death penalty exists in the form of imprisonment for life.¹

2. PRISON SYSTEMS BASICS
Overall prison conditions remained poor. Prisons continued to be overcrowded, medical facilities were inadequate, and food supplies was insufficient. Inadequate sanitation and medical facilities posed serious threats to health.²

2.1 Structures and alternatives.
There are gradations of confinement, with different levels of security and freedom, but these are not used in some cases of mental illness.  There are alternative punishments rather than  incarceration, which includes community service and financial payment. There are no "open" prisons, with minimum security, depending on the responsibility of the detainees.¹

2.2 Physical space and separations.
Overcrowding is a major problem in the central prison in Bamako. There are often nine hundred or more detainees in a prison built for four hundred. This is similar to other jails and correction. There are as yet no concrete steps to address this situation. Men and women are separated in all prisons in the country.  Children, adults and seniors are separated. The accused and convicted are separated in only a few prisons. Those deprived of their liberty for reasons of civil and criminal offences are separated in large prisons. Juveniles and adults are separated in prisons. There is no uniform for any prisoner.¹

In Bamako, men and women were placed in separate prisons. Outside the capital men and women were held in separate cells within the same prison. Arrested individuals may be held for up to 72 hours in police stations where there are no separate holding areas for men and women. Juvenile offenders usually were held in the same prison as adult offenders, but were kept in separate cells. Pretrial detainees were held with convicted prisoners.²

2.3 Pretrial services and process.
Pretrial services, which assess the needs of the accused and recommend possible treatment or other solutions instead of incarceration, do not exist. There are social services in only a few prisons, which are not very effective. People do receive credit (subtracted from their sentence) for the duration of their pre-trial imprisonment.¹

2.4 Standards.
There are laws for prisons, and codes, and they are applied, but not as effectively as they should be. ¹

3. PROTECTION OF INCARCERATED PERSONS
                                                                                                                                                                                                         
3.1 Grievances.
Those who are incarcerated are not able to complain to the central authority as regards living conditions in the prisons. Members of civil society, community and the press can go into prisons with the authorization of the Ministry of Justice or the National Directorate of Prison Administration. They can monitor the education of inmates, and can meet with the prisoners. Photos are prohibited in prison.¹

3.2 Abuse of incarcerated persons.
Some policies exist for humane treatment in keeping with the dignity of every human person, but incarcerated persons are threatened with acts of collective punishment. Solitary confinement is not used  excessively. Even if the law allows compensation and support for persons who are abused or injured by law-enforcement officials, procedures have always discouraged the victims. There often is violence among prisoners, and there are prisoners who control other inmates for prison discipline. ¹

4.  HEALTH SERVICES FOR INCARCERATED PERSONS

4.1 Health Care.
There are no medical personnel in prisons, but there are some doctors who visit prisoners on the invitation of the director. In case of infectious disease, patients are evacuated to hospitals with feet and hands bound. The toilets are not healthy and there are not enough of them. Overcrowding facilitates the rapid spread of contagious diseases such as scab, tuberculosis etc. Foods in prisons are not of good quality. Parents always prepare food for inmates. Inmates go outside for fresh air, but not all of them; some will remain locked in their cells by their sentence.

4.2 Women-Care.
Pregnant women make consultations before, during and after delivery in gynecology, and in pediatrics within their means.¹

4.3 Mental Illness and Addictions.
Neither alcohol nor drug addiction are major causes of incarceration in Mali, but primarily theft and fraud.
Drugs are banned in prisons, but they are sold.¹

5. RESTORATIVE PRACTICES

5.1 Rehabilitation Programs.
In Mali, they do not have proper education programs. At the prison in Bollet, one learns the alphabet and ironwork. In the central prison in Bamako,there is the alphabét and making art objects. In the prison in Bollet, for women, sometimes there is traditional clothing and soap and care of the hair, but this is not all the time. In some other prisons there are literacy classes that are offered. No special skills for life are developed in this education program. There is no library in the prison. Administrators allow religious leaders to enter and talk with the detainees. No prisoner ever receives a salary for work done in prison.  There are social workers in prisons in Bamako, who are often involved with the accused before going for trial. There was in Bamako one week of events for prisoners. On this occasion there was an exhibition of items made by prisoners, along with ballet and squash games which they had learned for the occasion.¹

5.2 Reentry Programs.

There are no pre-release programs to aid the return of detainees to society. In practice it is difficult to find men released on condition of moral rehabilitation. There is no structure of health or education to deal with ex-prisoners. Nothing is done to aid the reintegration of an ex-prisoner; he cares for himself. There are some NGOs working temporarily when they have the means to care for them.¹

6.2 Visitation.
The government permitted prison visits by human rights monitors; however, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other monitors were required to submit a request to the prison director, who then forwarded it to the Ministry of Justice. Approvals, which took up to one week, were routinely granted, but the week delay hindered the ability of monitors to ascertain if there were human rights violations. Several NGOs, including the Malian Association of Human Rights and the Malian Association of Women Lawyers (AJM), visited prisoners and worked with female and juvenile prisoners to improve their conditions.²