Law and the Protection against Family Violence

The law of “Protection against Family Violence” has been processing while aiming at reducing the cases of family violence, providing protection guarantees, and taking necessary measures to protect household entities.

Law defines family violence as: any form of physical, psychological, sexual or financial mistreatment whether through action, abstained form, or a threat achieved by one of family members against another member or more while violating his legal responsibility which according to the actions and crimes under the national legislation.

Under the law, there will be a formation of a national committee in pursuance of the decision of the head of Supreme Council for Family Affairs and the delegate members of public authorities and civil society to shape a general policy for family protection. It also forms shelters for victims of family violence as all correspondences and procedures related to crimes of family violence should be kept confidential even if defended in courts. Then, it will be forwarded to the representatives of the Judicial Control Committee.

Article 8 mentioned that anyone who is abused by one of his family members is asked to introduce a report to the competent authority. However, if the victim is a child, the communique will be introduced to child protection centers related to the Supreme Council for Family Affairs in order to guarntee.

Article 9 confirmed that the procedures of the lawsuit out of family violence can be cancelled by the abused at any step that should be before the judgment.

In order to guarantee the detection of family violence cases and to not keep such cases as discrete, article 10 recommends that anyone who witnesses an incident of family violence will be penalized under the provisions for refraining from reporting crimes under law16 issued in 1960.

However, article 11 forces the administration of child protection centers and police stations to report any suspected case of family violence to the specialized authority. The same article provides the petitioner with the necessary legal protection in order to keep confidential his data unless it is required by the judiciary procedures.

Article 12 applies the penalties in article 145 and article 145 repeated in the Penal Law for anyone who provides a fake or lying report of a family violence case.

 Article 14 penalizes anyone who tries to convince any abused in a family violence case to cancel his complaint with being jailed with a period of time that ranges between one week and six months along with a fine that ranges between 100 Dinar and 1000 Dinar, or one of these penalties or even more serious.

In case one of the government employees tries to convince the viction to cancel his complaint, the former will be penalized according to article 58 of law 31 issued in 1970 with jail for a period of time that does not exceed 3 years and a maximum fund of 225 Dinar or one of these penalties.

Article 14 requires police and judiciary control committee to take the necessary measures when receiving any report and forward it to the administration of protection centers. Article 20, however, includes the penalties for violating the roles of protection,

Without violating the reported penalties according to the provisions of this law, article 21 of the court issues an alternative penalty which commits the aggressor to do an unpaid work for community service.

Article 22 clarifies that the Public Prosecution is the only authority responsible for investigating and dealing with the reports related to family violence.

Article 23 requires the establishment of a fund to protect family violence victims in order to guarantee the special care for them and provide solutions to minimize the crimes of family violence and rehabilitate its offenders. The resources of the refund consists of amounts of money that the government specifies for the budget of the Supreme Court for Family Affairs and for donations but the execution should be according to the roles restricted by the implementing regulations for the organization of fund administration, its specialties and work mechanisms.