Angola’s Law and Justice Reform Commission: an opportunity for broader and more robust reforms?
Posted: 31 August, 2020 Filed under: Eduardo Kapapelo | Tags: Angola, Angolan Constitution, Angolan government, constitutional democracy, constitutional imbalance, forms of domination, Joao Lourenço, judicial system, Law and Justice Reform Commission, reform, rights violations, the Commission for Law and Justice Reform, WHO Report, World Report on Violence and Health 1 Comment
Author: Eduardo Kapapelo
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
In May 2020 Angolan President Joao Lourenço through Dispatch 72/20 established the Commission for Law and Justice Reform (the Commission). The Commission has the mandate to reforming Angola’s law and justice institutions. At first glance the Commission is in line with achieving continental objectives such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063 which stresses that key to achieving Africa’s developmental needs requires ‘democratic values, culture practices, universal principles of human rights, gender, equality, justice and the rule of law are entrenched’.
The Commission has within its scope of work to reform Angola’s judicial system with a particular focus on amending the organic laws of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Court of Auditors, the State House, the Attorney General’s Office and the Angolan Bar Association. The exact nature and concrete steps of such reform are still to be seen.
In the commission’s first meeting, Angola’s minister of justice and human rights Francisco Quiero who also serves as coordinator stated that, the establishment of the Commission attested the to the interest of ‘maintaining and reinforcing the institutional cohesion of Angola’s sovereign organs in the promotion of justice and in the construction of justice’. Ironically enough and though Angola’s law and justice reform is of vital importance, the approach in which such reforms are being proposed seem to raise a number of eyebrows.
The unclear relation between Angola and its Muslim citizens and migrants: Is Angola discriminating against them?
Posted: 6 October, 2017 Filed under: Cristiano d'Orsi | Tags: Angola, Angolan Constitution, Angolan Muslims, discrimination, freedom of religion, human rights, illegal immigration, ISIS, Islamic, Islamic Community of Angola, Islamic State terror group, John Locke, Law on Religion, Manuel Fernando, religion, Rosa Cruz da Silva 1 Comment
Author: Cristiano d’Orsi
Research Fellow and Lecturer at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of Johannesburg
Angola is a country where the traditional Islamic relation between Muhajirun (‘immigrants’) and Ansar (‘helpers’: locals)[1] seems not to find a fertile ground. Islam in Angola represents a minority religion, with an estimate number of proselytes amounting to approximately 1%[2] of the entire population.[3] These are mostly Sunnis who arrived in Angola from West Africa,[4] Somalia[5] and from families of Lebanese descent[6] following the end of the Angolan Civil War in 2002.
Historically, as many of these immigrants entered Angola illegally, which created the misperception of associating Islam with illegal immigration and crime (almost predominantly counterfeiting of money and money laundering), although barely any evidence of this has been proved.[7] This was affirmed by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief on her visit to the country in 2007.[8]
AfricLaw 