Pastef MP Amadou Ba has tabled a bill interpreting the amnesty law, with six articles, before the Speaker of the National Assembly. Some politicians and parliamentarians, such as MP Thierno Alassane Sall, see this as a way for Pastef to exonerate its members and activists from crimes or offenses that could have been prosecuted.

But according to its author, Amadou Ba, this interpretative proposal only aims to clarify the scope of the text.

Today, Seneweb is making available to all its readers the full text of the proposal for the interpretation of Amnesty Law No. 2024-09 of March 13, 2024.

"National Assembly

Draft law interpreting Amnesty Law No. 2024-09 of March 13, 2024

Amnesty Law No. 2024-09 of March 13, 2024 aimed to erase facts that could be classified as criminal or correctional committed in connection with the political events that swept through Senegal from 2021 to 2024.

According to the original legislator's intention, the scope of the law was restricted to only those offenses that were politically motivated or those committed in connection with the exercise of a political freedom.

The legislator's intention has therefore never been to leave common law offences unpunished, without any link to political motivation.

Furthermore, the amnesty law did not intend to exclude from its scope of application the management of victims' rights through fair and equitable compensation, independent of the possibility of the use of physical restraint.

In these two respects, the present interpretative law aims to clarify the meaning and scope of certain provisions of the previous law, in particular in its articles 1 and 3, then, to adapt the internal legal corpus to the international conventions to which Senegal has adhered and which are binding on the legislator.

This is indeed the case of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 10 December 1984. The principle of the prohibition of these crimes is based on jus cogens in that it is enforceable erga omnes and cannot be subject to amnesty. This is also the case for the Rome Statute, which entered into force on 1 July 2002 and is internalised in the legal system of Senegal.

This proposal aims to clarify the scope of the text, in order to avoid national law coming into conflict with international agreements regularly ratified by Senegal;

This is the economy of the present draft interpretative law.

Law No. interpreting Amnesty Law No. 2024-09 of March 13, 2024

Article 1 . - Within the meaning of Article 1 of Law No. 2024-09 of March 13, 2024, all acts that may be classified as criminal or correctional, having an exclusively political motivation, including those committed by all means of communication, between February 1, 2021 and February 25, 2024, both in Senegal and abroad, are automatically amnestied. Thus, acts relating to demonstrations are only included in the scope of the law if they have an exclusively political motivation.

Article 2. -Amnesty entails, without ever giving rise to restitution, the total remission of all principal, accessory and complementary penalties, as well as the disappearance of all forfeitures, exclusions, incapacities and deprivations of rights attached to the penalty.

Article 3 : Within the meaning of Article 3 of Law No. 2024-09 of March 13, 2024, the amnesty does not prejudice the rights of third parties or the rights of victims to compensation. Imprisonment may not be exercised against convicted persons who have benefited from the amnesty, except at the request of the victims of the offense or their beneficiaries.

Article 5.- Disputes relating to the application of this amnesty law shall be judged by the indictment chamber of the Dakar Court of Appeal, under the conditions provided for by article 735 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Article 6.- Any magistrate or civil servant is prohibited from recalling or allowing to remain in any form whatsoever in a judicial or police file or in any official document, the convictions, forfeitures, exclusions, incapacities and deprivations of rights attached to the sentence erased by the amnesty except as provided for in Article 3 of this law.

However, the minutes of judgments or rulings as well as decrees, orders and decisions taken within the framework of the civil service or national orders are exempt from this prohibition when they have been filed in the registries or in the National Archives.

This Act shall be executed as a law of the State."