Abstract
The right a trial without undue delay is guaranteed using identical language in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). All three mirror the guarantee in the International Convention for Civil and Political Rights that all persons charged with crimes are entitled to be tried without undue delay. This paper will examine the reason for a right a trial without undue delay and its origin in national and international law. It also will show how these national guarantees serve as the basis of the international law guarantee of trial without undue delay and how that guarantee has played out in the international courts. Finally, this paper will examine reasons why the right of trial without undue delay arguably has been ignored and/or violated in the ICTY, the ICTR and the ICC due long delays in completing the cases.
Highlights
To Justin Mugenzi and Prosper Mugiraneza, the guarantee of trial without undue delay must seem hollow
It is noteworthy that the committee, charged with interpreting the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), interprets the guarantee of trial without undue delay to include the time between initiation of charges through commencement of the trial but the entire process including trial, deliberations on verdict and appeal
New Zealand,68 the case of a 15-year-old girl sentenced to four years incarceration for aggravated robbery, the committee found no violation of the right to trial without undue delay during a nine-year period between arrest and final appellate decision when the government accounted for the delays in detail
Summary
To Justin Mugenzi and Prosper Mugiraneza, the guarantee of trial without undue delay must seem hollow. Joseph Kanyabash was in ICTR custody for almost 20 years before his appeal was resolved He served almost all of a 20-year sentence in pretrial detention. Two other ICTY co-defendants, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, waited from their initial appearances in June 2003 through December 2015 – more than 12 years – for their cases to be completed.. His trial ran from January 2009 through July 2012 His 14-year sentence was affirmed on appeal in December 2014, more than eight years after his arrest
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