Some twenty magistrates specializing in the fight against corruption and economic crimes were officially installed within the financial judicial pool on Tuesday, September 17 in Dakar.

The brand-new financial judicial pool composed of a total of 27 magistrates will in particular be responsible for examining complaints of corruption, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering and terrorist financing. It replaces the Court for the Suppression of Illicit Enrichment (CREI), which was created in 1981 and had more limited powers. The new magistrates are required to deal with “economic and financial offenses, the financing of terrorism, the financing of terrorism, money laundering and many other complex offenses, all with the guarantee of respect for a fair trial” with, in particular, the possibility of appealing, according to Mamady Diané, one of the new judges of the structure. The information states that “this pool is not installed for a year or two but forever.”

According to Baye el-Malick Diop, registrar and general secretary of the Union of Justice Workers, the CREI had also and above all become an outdated body: “financial crime is a crime that evolves very rapidly. It was therefore necessary to have judicial personnel, magistrates, able to track it down effectively. For this reason, the legislator considered it necessary to set up a specialized jurisdiction.”