SUMMARY REPORT OF THE PLENARY SESSION OF 09 FEBRUARY 2022

The year two thousand and twenty-two, on the ninth day of February, senators met in the Senate hemicycle for the 76^th plenary session of the sixth legislature to consider and adopt two bills, namely the bill on the statute of the support staff of the Burundi National Police and the bill on prevention and repression of cybercrime in Burundi.

The session which was led by the Right Honourable Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Emmanuel SINZOHAGERA, was attended by 33 senators and a representative of the Government, Mr. Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA, Minister of Homme Affairs, Community Development and Public Security. It began, as usual, with a prayer at 9:21 a.m. and ended at 1:20 p.m.

Opening the session, the Senate Speaker first welcomed all the senators. Then, he invited the Government representative to present the preamble of the first Bill on the statute of the support staff of the Burundi National Police.

In his presentation, the Minister specified that the support staff of the National Police is governed by Decree No. 100/127 of April 23, 2015 on measures for the implementation of Law No. 1/06 of March 2, 2006 on the statute of the Burundi National Police staff while the officers, sergeants and agents of the Burundi National Police have been endowed respectively with their own statute since December 2010.

In addition, the Government representative did not fail to say that the promulgation of Organic Law No. 1/27 of December 9, 2021 amending Organic Law No. 1/03 of February 20, 2017 on the missions, composition, organization and functioning of the Burundi National Police has made this decree governing the support staff contradictory with this law.

He also added that the statute of the personnel of the defense and security corps fall within the domain of the law in accordance with the Constitution of June 7, 2018 in its article 164 point 3°, eighth indent.

Finally, the Government representative indicated that this bill, once promulgated, will intervene on the one hand, within the framework of the implementation of organic law n ° 1/27 of December 9, 2021 amending the organic law n° 1/03 of February 20, 2017 and within the framework of the respect for the Constitution which provides for the statute of the personnel of the defense and security corps within the domain of the law and not within the domain of a regulatory text on the other hand.

After this presentation, the floor was given to Honourable Jean Bosco KURISANSUMA, Vice-President of the Standing Committee in charge of political, defense and security issues which had been referred to so as to present to the plenary the report of this committee.

After the presentation of the committee report, the floor was given to senators so that they could express themselves as part of the general debate.

When asked whether a new recruitment is going to be organized in order to replace those who are going to retire, Mr. Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA replied that the answer can be both negative and positive. Thus, the Minister indicated that everything will be conditioned by the recruiting capacity or possibility of the National Police body, he hammered.

To the question to know the nature of the contract granted to the players of RUKINZO team, the Government representative gave clarifications while specifying that this category of people is not part of the support staff of Burundi National Police. They are managed by the supervisor of this team through a fixed-term service contract, he added.

After these exchanges of public interests, the bill was put to the vote and it was adopted unanimously by 39 senators, among whom 33 present and 6 proxies.

After a five-minute break, the session resumed at 10:48 a.m. to consider the second bill on the agenda. It is the presentation of the preamble of this bill relating to the prevention and repression of cybercrime in Burundi which inaugurated this second sequence of the session and which was developed by the same Government representative.

In his presentation, the Minister said that information and communication technologies (ICT) are an essential catalyst for economic and social development and; contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on a global scale for developing countries.

In addition, the Minister pointed out that despite the advantages offered by the ICT, the environment created by cyberspace means that the economy, privacy and social interactions are threatened by a new form of crime. This crime was defined by the Organization of the United Nations as being like any illegal behavior involving electronic operations aiming at the security of the systems and data that they process and thus bears the name of cybercrime.

Before closing his preamble, the Government representative made it clear that this new form of crime, the scale of which is considerable, calls on any society like Burundi to react and take adequate measures for its repression in order to protect its users in particular, and the society in general.

He also showed that it is necessary to adequately make laws in the computer domain since a lot of cases are observed.

After the presentation of the report of the referred committee by the president of the latter, Honourable Benoîte NIZIGIYIMANA, the floor was given to the Honourable senators to speak under the general debate for more clarifications.

To the question to know the rights of telecommunications users, the Minister shed light explaining that this law is new. He added  that it is a new domain, difficult to master. According to her, law is always dynamic and it can be adapted at any time according to the requirements of the moment.

As for the suggestion of the Honourable senators to create the specific Commissariat for this domain of computing since a lot of offenses are heard, the technical and scientific police laboratory housed by the Central Commissariat of Judicial Identification seems sufficient for the moment and recourse to the capacity of the Interpol regime is possible, the Minister said.

 After these fruitful exchanges, the bill was put to the vote and it was also adopted unanimously by 39 senators, among whom 33 present and 6 proxies.

The session ended in a climate of total harmony.