fundamental principle governing children’s rights, which demands that all laws and acts performed by relevant duty-holders, including States, should abide by the best interest of the child.41 108. Given the above, this Court finds that by sentencing the Second Applicant to life imprisonment in the present Application, the domestic courts failed to take into account the Applicant’s age and the desirability of promoting his reformation and re-integration into society. 109. Further, by failing to impose the lenient penalty provided for in the new law, the domestic courts also failed to safeguard the best interest of the child. This notwithstanding, given that the more lenient penalty is corporal punishment, the Court restates its position on the nature of such penalty as recalled earlier in paragraph 101 of this judgment. 110. In light of the foregoing, the Court finds that the Respondent State violated Article 17(3) of ACRWC as read together with Article 40(1) of CRC by imposing the sentence of life imprisonment on the Second Applicant. VIII. REPARATIONS 111. The Second Applicant prays that the Court should order the Respondent State to pay him compensation in special damage in the amount this Court may deem fit. The Second Applicant further prays for the Court to order the Respondent State to pay him compensation amounting to Thirteen Million and Twenty-Two Thousand Tanzanian Shillings (TZS 13,022,000) including the value of the properties that he lost upon his arrest. 41 See Art 4(1) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; see also, Institute for Human Rights and Development in African and Open Society Justice Initiative (on behalf of children of Nubian descent) v. Kenya, Communication No. No 002/Com/002/2009, Decision of 22 March 2011, para 29. 28