all also be considered an accomplice".
II. Extradition regime
Burkina Faso has signed agreements on mutual legal assistance, including extradition, with France (an agreement on judicial cooperation, signed at Paris on 24 April 1961) and Mali (a general convention on cooperation in judicial matters, signed at Ouagadougou on 23 November 1963).
At the multilateral level, Burkina Faso has also signed several conventions on judicial cooperation, including:
- The general convention on judicial cooperation, signed at Antananarivo on 12 September 1961 under the auspices of the former African and Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM);
- The convention on judicial cooperation among the States parties to the Accord on Non-Aggression and Mutual Assistance in Defence (ANAD), adopted at Nouakchott on 21 April 1987;
- The convention A/P.1/7/92 of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, adopted at Dakar on 29 July 1992;
- The extradition convention A/P.1/8/94 of ECOWAS, signed at Abuja on 6 August.
For countries bound to Burkina Faso by a cooperation agreement or convention, these texts are applicable in their relations.
For countries not bound to Burkina Faso by an agreement or convention on judicial cooperation, the text which applies in the case of a request for extraition is the legislative act of 10 March 1927 on the extradition of foreigners. That law was promulgated in former French West Africa (AOF) and made applicable to the former colonies by an order dated 2 April 1927 (Official Journal of French West Africa, 1927, p. 297). It remained in force in Burkina Faso after independence. Article 1 of the act provides that, "in the absence of a treaty, the conditions, procedure and modalities of extradition shall be determined by the provisions of the present law. The law shall also apply to those issues not regulated by treaties".
What is clear from the reading of this article on the extradition law of Burkina Faso is that the extradition of foreigners is not subordinated to the prior existence of a treaty, since the law in question is designed to regulate cases where no treaty exists or points on which existing treaties are silent.
In the case of a request for extradition, the same law subordinates the handing over of the foreigner who is the subject of the request to the existence of legal proceedings or a conviction for an offence under the law (art. 2).
With regard to offences for which extradition may be requested by foreign Governments, the law makes a distinction between the case of persons being prosecuted and those sentenced (art. 4). For persons being prosecuted, the law allows extradition for all offences constituting crimes under the laws of the requesting State. Regarding offences punishable by custodial sentences under the laws of the requesting State, the laws of Burkina Faso require that the maximum sentence must be at least two years of imprisonment.
For sentenced offenders, the act dated 10 March 1927 requires that the sentence handed down by the court in the requesting State must equal or exceed two months of imprisonment.
From these various clarifications, it may be said that the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime alone cannot serve as the legal basis for the offences it considers extraditable. It can certainly be affirmed, however, that the domestic laws of Burkina Faso, and the agreements to which the country is signatory, easily allow for extradition and are not at variance with the Convention.
III. Central authority competent to receive and execute requests for mutual legal assistance
In Burkina Faso, the central authority competent to receive and execute requests for mutual legal assistance is the Garde des sceaux, Minister of Justice. This principle is enshrined in art
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