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.
Biko and the right to happiness
Posted: 24 March, 2016 Filed under: Saul Leal | Tags: apartheid, Biko's legacy, black consciousness, Black Consciousness Movement, civil society, collective, Constitution of South Africa, democracy, equality, freedom, judicial system, material goods, one man one vote, onstitutionalism, plural society, right to happiness, South Africa, spiritual poverty, Stephen Bantu Biko, struggle 7 Comments
Author: Saul Leal
Vice-Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA)
Stephen Bantu Biko occupies a singular place in South African history, precisely because of the manner in which his legacy affected South African constitutionalism.
Biko fought for equal treatment under the law, and proudly founded the Black Consciousness Movement in order to achieve this goal. Biko engaged in a fearless debate related to the victims of racism and colonialism which encompassed the degradation of self-esteem and the inflicted inferiority complex of black South Africans. Biko’s struggle against white authority in order to promote and defend democracy has left a legacy of ideas which would influence future South African generations, including the sentiment of “one man, one vote”.
In 1970, Steve Biko stated that “in order to achieve real action you must yourself be a living part of Africa and of her thought; you must be an element of that popular energy which is entirely called forth for freeing, the progress and the happiness of Africa”.[1] At the time, Biko was a doctoral student and political activist. He was arrested in August 1977. Biko was kept naked and manacled, and died twenty-five days later from brain damage.
Biko envisioned a more inclusive and deeper interpretation of democracy, as opposed to its purely material application. For him, “material want is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty it kills. And this latter effect is probably the one that creates mountains of obstacles in the normal course of emancipation of the black people”.[2]
How biometric identification can help the judicial management system
Posted: 11 February, 2015 Filed under: Mohammad Shahnewaz | Tags: biometric identification, biometric technology, crimes against humanity, dna, DNA biometric testing, evidence, forensics, identity, identity theft, judicial system, stock witness 1 Comment
Author: Mohammad Shahnewaz
Senior Digital Marketing Specialist, M2SYS Technology
In many developing countries in Asia and Africa, the judicial system is yet to catch up with the perpetrators of crimes. The time has come for the respective authorities to change this notion and prepare themselves to adopt cutting-edge technologies like biometrics to accelerate the pace of the judiciary process. They have to remember the saying ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.
In developing countries people have a stereotypical view about judicial systems being slow, rigid, and secretive. This impression exists largely because of the slow judicial process and corruption within the system due to unavailability of modern age technologies to establish accountability of judicial personnel. On the other hand, since there is no effective system for keeping track of day-to-day judicial activities or cross-checking with previous case histories, problems like suspect identity theft and the use of stock witness are frequently taking place. Biometric identification technology can help to establish more accurate and secure identification and thus help the judicial system become more efficient, fast, responsible, and user-friendly.
In a judicial system the accurate identification of subjects is of major importance for effective administration. The public’s faith and trust of the judicial system relies largely on the ability to administer the right justice to the right person in a timely manner. Biometric identification systems can help the judicial system to accurately identify a crime suspect without a shadow of a doubt to determine guilt or innocence in a timely manner by a quick scan of a physiological attribute.
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