Towards a rights-based juvenile justice system in Liberia: justice professionals and legal consciousness

This study investigates how the Liberian juvenile justice system, and its professional actors view and deal with children in conflict with the law. The study sets out to evaluate justice professionals’ consciousness of the need for a child rights-based approach (CRBA). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) lays the foundation for the protection of children in Liberia and gave rise to the 2011 Children’s Law of Liberia. Prior to this more recent national instrument, Liberia approved a law in 1971 to create a juvenile justice system. This established several regulations unique to children under 18 years old (Wesley and Tall, n.d). Despite efforts to meet national and international justice standards for children, there remain serious gaps in the practices of justice actors toward children in conflict with the law. The study also identifies some legal and systemic factors hindering the delivery of a broadly child rights-based approach in juvenile proceedings. It considers how such an approach can be implemented in future, to enhance the responsiveness of the justice system in Liberia, and specifically the juvenile correctional and judicial systems. The research asks to what extent a rights-based approach is reflected in policies and practices of the juvenile justice system in Liberia. Through qualitative research drawing on selective interviews with police, lawyers and social workers, and others in the justice sector, the study will explore how these actors relate to juveniles offender under the law. Daily routines as well as everyday processes are related to frameworks like the CRC, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of Children, the Children’s Law and various continental protocols that aim to protect children’s rights. Overall, the study finds that to support a more child-friendly approach, justice actors need to take steps to implement a rights-based approach, recreating or remodelling and extending those existing juvenile justice practices that work best for children in conflict with the law. The study demonstrates how the various stakeholders, duty-bearers and juveniles, should all be considered rights-holders in terms of their experiences, can help improve the child-friendliness of the Liberian juvenile justice system.