Law amending the Code of Criminal Procedure (Loi no 15/024 du 31 décembre 2015 modifiant et complétant le Décret du 06 août 1959, portant Code de procédure pénale)

The publication of the 2010 Mapping Exercise report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights—which documented violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 1993-2003—played a key role in prompting human rights activists to call on the government to take urgent and significant measures to punish the perpetrators of the international crimes described in the report. In response to this advocacy, members of parliament in the Democratic Republic of the Congo discussed amending three laws: the Military Criminal Code, the Procedural Code, and the Criminal Code of 1940.

This law, the third law adopted on December 31, 2015, reaffirms the government’s willingness to cooperate with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.