A/HRC/39/42 1. Current situation and action taken by the Government 63. During the reporting period, the Congolese courts sentenced at least 131 FARDC soldiers, 74 Congolese national police officers and 78 members of armed groups or militias for acts constituting human rights violations, which represents an increase over the previous reporting period. Since the country’s law has been brought into line with the Rome Statute,14 the Congolese courts have been able to try a number of cases categorized as war crimes and crimes against humanity. 64. On 28 April 2018, Maro Ntumba, alias “the Moroccan”, a lieutenant-colonel of FARDC, was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment and the payment of damages to the civil parties by the South Kivu military court, for war crimes involving sexual slavery, looting and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and for crimes against humanity involving mass rape, attacks against the civilian population and looting, committed between 2005 and 2007 in Kalehe territory. 65. On 22 January 2018, the Operational Military Court closed its mobile courts in Beni after 17 months of investigations, during which it had heard 60 cases involving 179 defendants. Of these, the court had convicted 134 and acquitted the other 45. 66. Major challenges remain in the campaign against impunity and to promote the administration of justice, however. In addition to structural obstacles, such as the shortage of judges, the unequal distribution of courts throughout the country and the lack of material and financial resources, problems related to the lack of judicial independence persist. 67. The national policy for reform of the justice system for the period 2017–2026, which was ratified in May 2017, has not led to the adoption of a programmatic law to ensure effective implementation of the goals set, including by guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary, access to high-quality justice for all, abolition of the death penalty and recognition of the right of appeal to the Operational Military Court. 68. Since the rejection in 2012 of the bill on the establishment of special chambers, no initiative has been proposed by the Government to set in place a system to try crimes of the past, in particular those committed before the entry into force of the Rome Statute. 69. Conflicts arising between the civil and military courts are also creating difficulties, in particular in the processing of cases involving offences under the Rome Statute. The Code of Military Justice still includes certain offences for which civilians may be prosecuted by the military justice system. This raises difficulties of interpretation between the two judicial systems and the issue is frequently raised by civilian defendants claiming their non-justiciability before the military courts. 70. The High Commissioner regrets that Gédéon Kyungu, head of a Mai-Mai group convicted in 2009 by the military courts for criminal liability crimes against humanity (summary executions, rape, looting), participation in an insurrectionary movement and terrorism, for acts committed between 2003 and 2006, has remained free to come and go since turning himself in on 11 October 2016. 71. The inadequacies of the prison system are another major obstacle to the campaign against impunity. Mass escapes continue, facilitated among other factors by the dilapidated infrastructure, the limited numbers and inadequate training of the guards deployed to detention centres, and also by negligence and corruption. At least 1,682 individuals escaped from prisons during the reporting period. In addition, the number of persons held in pretrial detention remains high and the inadequate conditions of detention persist in most prisons, including lack of access to medical care, malnutrition and overcrowding. These conditions contributed to the death of at least 230 prisoners during the reporting period. 14 GE.18-13336 This alignment has been achieved through the enactment of the Criminal Code Amendment Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure Amendment Act and the Military Criminal Code Amendment Act (all promulgated on 31 December 2015) and the Code of Military Justice Amendment Act (promulgated on 10 March 2017). 11