15 November 2012 - The United Nations Integrated Peace-building Office in Guinea-Bissau, UNIOGBIS, and the Supreme Court, formally launched on Wednesday 14 November 2012 at the National Center for the Training of Magistrates (CENFOJ) in Bissau, a compendium of criminal laws, whose production it sponsored as part of the support it provides to Guinea Bissau's justice sector.

The 550-page volume, titled "Coletânea Fundamental de Direito Penal e Legislação Complementar" [Fundamental Compendium of Criminal Law and Complementary Legislation] is an exhaustive reference book on the Guinean criminal law framework.

Produced under a UNIOGBIS initiative aimed at improving access to legislation for judicial actors, it can be used by all actors of the justice sector, from magistrates, prosecutors and police to officials of the ministries of Justice, Home Affairs and Defence, the Bar Association and law students. It is also a useful tool for civil society groups, such as non-governmental organisations that promote the rule of law, seek to protect human rights - including children's and women's rights - fight impunity or foster peace and development.

Speaking at Wednesday's launch, the representatives of the President of the Supreme Court and the CENFOJ expressed gratitude to UNIOGBIS for the initiative and for its support for justice sector reforms in recent years, aimed at strengthening the independency of the judiciary through multiple capacity-building initiatives.

They stressed that the compendium would substantially facilitate the functioning of the judiciary by reducing the time magistrates spend to solve problems of a criminal nature and by enhancing the various actors' familiarity with the national system of criminal justice and its norms.