[JURIST] A spokesperson for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lambert Mende, announced Wednesday that President Joseph Kabila [Forbes backgrounder] signed parliament-approved legislation to keep elections on a timeline that will not violate the Constitution [text, PDF]. Beginning in January, protests and demonstrations [JURIST report] have taken place across the country to oppose the proposed changes in the law that would allegedly allow President Joseph Kabila to extend his presidential term past the allotted two-year limit. In response to the protests, the DRC Senate [official website, in French] amended [JURIST report] the country’s electoral law to permit the 2016 presidential election to go forward as scheduled, without the requirement of conducting a census. The government argues [AP report] that the census is essential to a fair election, but the opposition sees the census, which could take years, as a way for Kabila to stay in office.The signing of the legislation will allow for the first local elections to take place on October 25 and the presidential elections scheduled to take place in November 2016.

The DRC has also been the site of considerable human rights abuses committed by both government forces and various rebel groups in the recent past. Earlier this month Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Congolese authorities [JURIST report] to bring to justice those who commanded rebel troops to commit killings, rapes, mutilations and child abductions across the DRC. In November HRW released a report accusing police officers in the DRC of executing [JURIST report] 51 youths and causing the disappearance of 33 others.The UN issued a report [JURIST report] in October that addressed the human rights violations taking place in connection with Operation Likofi. In July the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict presented a report outlining the situation of the child in the DRC, which found the recruitment of child soldiers [JURIST report] persists. In June the head of the UN Mission in the DRC strongly condemned [JURIST report] an outbreak of deadly violence in the eastern areas of the DRC, sparked by a confrontation over cattle. In April a coalition of 146 Congolese and international human rights organizations released a joint declaration urging the DRC to create new mechanisms in its national justice system [JURIST report] for prosecuting war crimes.