Majority of juvenile cases were drug related, shows court statistics

Year-end statistics from the Juvenile Court has shown that the majority of cases submitted to the court during 2013 have been of drugs related charges.

The numbers show that the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) forwarded a total of 103 cases to the Juvenile Court last year. Adding 43 pending cases from 2012, the court saw trials for 146 cases in 2013, out of which, 122 cases were concluded by the year's end.

The breakdowns reveal that the court saw 55 cases of trafficking, possession and consumption of drugs, 11 cases of robbery, 9 cases of refusing to provide urine samples to the authorities and 3 acts of contempt of court.

The cases concluded by the court include; 1 case of murder, 1 case of terrorism and 54 cases of trafficking, possession and consumption of drugs. The court also saw all 584 detention cases in 2013.

Last year, the Juvenile Court had successfully forwarded 65 of the 66 reports of concluded cases the PG within the specified 14 days since conclusion.

The court noted that compared to a total of 83 cases in 2012, the number of cases forwarded by the PG had increased to 103 in 2013. However, the number of juveniles brought before the court for detention rulings had decreased from 666 cases in 2012 to 584 case sin 2013.