Central to the concept of Security Sector Reform (SSR) is the question of who is responsible for the protection of human security in a country. In a broad understanding, as it has been entrenched with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) or the European Commission (EC), amongst those responsible are not only the military and the police but also the judicial system.
Therefore, the latter has to be an integral part of every successful SSR. Just the opposite is true for the UNDP reform in Guinea. Since a EU delegation has been preparing a judicial reform in Guinea for a while, the judiciary system has largely been left aside in the SSR implemented by the UNDP.
In HSFK-Standpunkt No. 10/2013 "Sicherheitssektorreform in Guinea: Ohne eine umfassende Einbindung des Justizsystems wird die Reform scheitern", Alena Mehlau argues that the efforts will remain ineffective this way: Old patterns are perpetuated, existing problems, especially the military's overly high influence on politics, cannot be overcome. Based on her own fieldwork in Guinea, the author describes the consequences of an SSR that has not been holistically planned and implemented.
The HSFK-Standpunkt is available as a free PDF download (German only).