ALGIERS - On Tuesday, members of the Council of the Nation adopted a bill amending and supplementing Ordinance 66-156 on the Criminal Code, during a plenary session chaired by Salah Goudjil, President of the Council, in the presence of the Minister of Justice, Abderrachid Tabi, and the Minister of Relations with Parliament, Basma Azouar.
The text provides for new procedures, including "the revision of provisions relating to certain criminal cases, the reinforcement of protection for managers and support for investment", as well as "the fight against the crimes of forgery and usurpation of office, and the protection of security corps".
The text also provides for the revision of provisions relating to certain criminal cases, aimed at relieving pressure on the criminal court, including the revision and replacement of the life sentence by a prison term of up to 30 years, as for certain acts of deliberate violence and arson that have not caused injury or permanent disability".
This bill suggests provisions for "the criminalization of all acts detrimental to investment, under the new Investment Act of 2022. Thus, anyone who engages in acts or practices designed to hinder investment is punished by one (1) to three (3) years' imprisonment, and the penalty is increased from five (5) to seven (7) years if the perpetrator is a person whose position facilitated the commission of the crime".
As for strengthening the protection of victims of certain crimes, the text proposes "tougher penalties for certain crimes, notably those of harassment, assault and sexual exploitation", as well as "reinforcing the penal protection of women by criminalizing the violation by a husband or fiancé of his wife's or fiancée's privacy".
Throughout the amendments, emphasis was placed on the importance of "guaranteeing the integrity of the national social fabric in the face of the influences of organized criminal groups, by toughening penalties and classifying new crimes arising from technological developments", in addition to "combating the crimes of forgery and usurpation of office".
On this occasion, the Council of the Nation's Legal and Administrative Affairs Committee, in its supplementary report, welcomed the content of this text, which it described as "an important milestone which reinforces the legal system in its economic, social and security dimensions".
She added that the amendments contained in the new text are designed "to strengthen the legal mechanisms for combating crime, to improve the performance of the justice system, to reinforce the penal protection of certain categories of society and to give concrete expression to the State's commitment to support and protect managers and investors, notably through the decriminalization of the act of management on the one hand and the criminalization of obstruction of investment on the other, in addition to humanizing public life and reinforcing the protection of security bodies".
The revision of the penal code "is of great importance in the process of building the new Algeria, which is advancing with sure steps towards the effective consecration of the rule of law, which has taken important steps towards the realization of political and socio-economic reforms and made it possible to establish a system guaranteeing the protection of rights and freedoms", adds the commission.
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