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The member states of the African Union are the independent countries within the African continent that collectively work towards the union's goals of promoting unity, economic development, and peace.
Explore Member StatesRecent Judgments
Keïta et Autres c République du Mali (Requête N° 005/2019) [2023] AfCHPR 31 (5 septembre 2023) 5 September 2023 Kabota c République-Unie De Tanzanie (Requête N° 032/2017) [2023] AfCHPR 25 (5 septembre 2023) 5 September 2023 Moses c République-unie de Tanzanie (Requête N° 033/2017) [2023] AfCHPR 24 (5 septembre 2023) 5 September 2023 Wambura et Mkama c République-Unie de Tanzanie (Requêtes N° 011/2016; Requêtes N° 012/2016) [2023] AfCHPR 30 (5 septembre 2023) 5 September 2023 Wambura and Another v United Republic of Tanzania (Consolidated Applications No. 011/2016; Consolidated Applications No. 012/2016) [2023] AfCHPR 30 (5 September 2023) 5 September 2023 View more judgmentsRecent Legal Instruments
Standard of Operating Procedures for Working Groups as Special Mechanisms within the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) 8 September 2020 Revised Constitution of the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Co-operation Organisation (SARPCCO) 18 August 2018 Treaty of the Southern African Development Community 18 August 2018 Protocol on Trade in Goods 21 March 2018 Accord Portant Création de la Zone de Libre-Échange Continentale Africaine 21 March 2018 View more legal instrumentsRecent Soft Law
Communique of the 1173rd meeting of the PSC, held on 14 September 2023, on the Situation in Somalia and the Operations of the AU Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) 14 September 2023 Communique de la 1173e réunion du CPS tenue le 14 septembre 2023 sur la situation en Somalie et les opérations de la Mission de transition de l'Union africaine en Somalie (ATMIS) 14 September 2023 Communiqué du 1172ème du CPS tenu le 31 août 2023, sur la situation en République gabonaise 31 August 2023 Communique of the 1172nd of the PSC held on 31 August 2023, on the situation in the Republic of Gabon 31 August 2023 Communiqué de la 1171ème réunion du CPS tenue le 24 août 2023, portant sur « l’exposé actualisé sur l’élaboration de la Position africaine commune sur la cybersécurité en Afrique » 24 August 2023 View more Soft LawRecent Reports and Guides
The pursuit for legal claims on Reparations for Slavery and colonialism in Africa under international human rights law 15 September 2023 African Leaders Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action 6 September 2023 The Use of Technology in Elections in Africa 30 August 2023 Press Release on the situation in Gabon following the presidential, legislative and municipal elections 30 August 2023 Communiqué de Presse sur la situation au Gabon subséquente aux élections présidentielles, législatives et municipales 30 August 2023 View more Reports and GuidesExplore African national legal information
Explore African national legislation and court judgments from Legal Information Institutes across Africa.
Latest Commentary
Tanzania’s high court continues ‘hands off’ approach to parliament, despite ‘inadequate’ timetable
- 29 September 2023
- Carmel Rickard
Three judges of Tanzania’s high court have dismissed a petition to set aside an agreement between that country and Dubai over management of Tanzania’s ports. It’s a dispute that has strongly divided people in Tanzania, and the country’s authorities have detained or threatened at least 22 people who criticised the national assembly’s ratification of the plan, with a lawyer among three people now threatened with prosecution for treason, a crime that carries the death penalty. A second petition against the port management deal, based on similar grounds to the first, but brought by other parties, was struck out by the court last week on the basis that the matter had now been decided.
Zambian human rights lawyers support chief justice: ‘constitutional rights also apply to gay people’
- 29 September 2023
- Carmel Rickard
A growing number of human rights lawyers in Zambia have come out in support of their country’s chief justice, Mumba Malila. He has caused consternation in some quarters because of his recent remarks, in response to a question on a public occasion, that gay people do not lose their humanity because of their sexuality. The lawyers say that the CJ was stating the current position on constitutional rights in Zambia, and that this is the basis on which ‘rights are celebrated and enjoyed everywhere else in the world.’
Crucial African Court decision follows Ivory Coast environmental disaster
- 28 September 2023
- Carmel Rickard
Judges and lawyers in increasing numbers of African countries are dealing with cases involving environmental or climate change issues. A significant new decision by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights will give those who work in these fields some important additional jurisprudence. The court was dealing with a case, sensational at the time, concerning a load of highly toxic waste, off loaded in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 2006. After the waste was dumped in various sites around Abidjan, 17 people died from toxic gas inhalations, the health of an estimated 100 000 others were affected to various degrees, while environmental experts said there had also been severe groundwater contamination. The applicants, human rights organisations in Ivory Coast, asked the African court to find that rights were violated by the government, and to order a series of reparations. Though the government of Ivory Coast protested about the entire application, the court has now made a slew of findings about the state’s violation of rights in relation to the scandal and has issued several orders against the state. They include an order giving Ivory Coast a year to implement legislative reforms that will enforce a ban on the import and dumping of hazardous waste in compliance with the international conventions to which the state is a party.
Appeals against inquiry findings by judges inquiring into Sierra Leone’s rampant corruption
- 28 September 2023
- Carmel Rickard
Two recent judgments from Sierra Leone, delivered on the same day, though they produced different outcomes, remind readers of the role played by judges in that country who headed inquiries into allegations of corruption. The current appeals were brought by top officials who complained about the findings made against them by the judges who headed two inquiries. One inquiry dated from 2018 under Justice Bankole Thompson, and the other, set up in the same year, was presided over by Justice Biobele Georgewill from Nigeria as the chair and sole commissioner. Both had to examine the assets of top state officials from Sierra Leone between 2007 and 2018 to see whether these assets were acquired lawfully and whether the officials had a standard of living that was ‘commensurate to their official emoluments’. This was part of a major effort at the time to deal with corruption in Sierra Leone, a country that has consistently been listed as one of the most corrupt in the world.
New deal for awaiting trial prisoners in Namibia
- 15 September 2023
- Carmel Rickard
Namibia’s highest court has delivered a judgment that could see a new era for awaiting trial prisoners in that country. Most fundamentally, it has struck down, as unconstitutional, the definition of the word ‘offender’ which had previously included awaiting trial prisoners. The court said that to call people ‘offenders’ when they hadn’t been convicted, struck at the heart of the constitutionally guaranteed presumption of innocence, because it suggested they had already been found guilty. The court also held certain other practices in relation to awaiting trial prisoners were unconstitutional.