The NationBy James Chavula27 January 2021 In 2017, a vendor moved the Constitutional Court to scrape a colonial law made by Britain in 1924 that empowered police to extort bribes from the poor and exert excess force on people they do not like. Now the adoption of coronavirus prevention rules...

Daily MaverickAbdirahman Maalim Gossar13 December 2020 In a watershed judgment, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has ruled that vague, outdated colonial-era laws, like those that outlaw being idle or disorderly, are a violation of human rights as embodied in the African Charter. On Sunday, 19 March 2019,...

The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, in its 59th Ordinary Session, has today declared that vagrancy laws as contained in national laws are in breach of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (African Charter), Children's Rights Charter, and Women's Rights Protocol (Maputo Protocol). The Court further...

Lawyers Alert in partnership with Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) released petty offences violations data report for Nigeria. The data is captured using its online tool and is continuously analyzed across ages, locations, types, and trends. It serves as an advocacy tool and for tailored program interventions. The...

The Mail & Guardian On 29 June this year, amid the generalized panic and concern about rising Covid-19 infection and police brutality both locally and globally, the Johannesburg High Court, in Johannesburg, issued a judgement with potentially major implications for the future of policing in Johannesburg and South Africa more...

The ElephantBy Patrick Gathara Kenyan prisons today carry the DNA of their forebears – the colonial prisons and Mau Mau detention camps. They are about brutalising prisoners into submission and scaring the rest of society into compliance with the state. And like their colonial predecessors, they are also sites of...

In September 2020, the Regional Campaign to Decriminalise Petty Offences hosted a virtual conference entitled Policing Pandemics, Balancing Rights. The conference communique and recordings of the conference are available online, for 14 September 2020, 15 September 2020, and 16 September 2020. Snippets from some of the conference presentations are included in this newsletter. Find the...

Regional Campaign partners remain deeply concerned about the criminalisation of poverty across our continent. It is critical that the Principles on the Decriminalisation of Petty Offences are implemented by all States. The global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the enactment of legislative and regulatory instruments to curb the spread of...

The Daily Maverick First published by GroundUp The global “war on drugs” has failed. The decades during which it has been waged have inflicted devastating consequences on societies in both hemispheres. These are no longer fringe advocacy assertions. They are an increasingly obvious truth. A series of authoritative international reports has documented...

The Guardian Human rights campaigners in Malawi are calling on the government to urgently release people from its notoriously overcrowded prisons as cases of Covid-19 are rising among both staff and inmates. Currently, 86 inmates and 21 members of staff have tested positive for Covid-19, according to the Malawi prison...

Progressive International Women’s imprisonment is closely related to poverty: women are in debt because they are poor and cannot afford basic life expenses, and their experiences are worsened because they often cannot afford legal services, fines, or bail. Because people are unaware of their legal rights and because of outdated...

The Nigerian Voice Data on human rights abuse associated with petty offences in Nigeria covering the period October 2019 and March 2020 have been released by Lawyers Alert. The Data detailing the analysis of human rights violations based on types of petty offences is with a view to serving as...

Business Tech The Department of Justice and Correctional Services is currently working on new legislation which will stop admission of guilt fines attracting criminal records in South Africas, says deputy minister John Jefferies. Jefferies made the announcement in a parliamentary briefing on Monday (18 May) after opposition parties raised concerns...

The Citizen Forced to choose between hunger and breaching the lockdown regulations, two waste pickers chose the latter – and wound up behind bars for three months. Now, the North Gauteng High Court has ordered the men’s immediate release and slammed the authorities for the “absolutely unacceptable” way in which...

Over 163,000 people are in correctional facilities in South Africa. Outbreaks of Covid-19 in these prisons can have catastrophic consequences for both prisoners and the public healthcare system. This article by ACJR's Lukas Muntingh was published by Spotlight and Daily Maverick. One need not be an expert in public health...

Amnesty International In many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, prisons are overcrowded. Prisoners often live in squalid conditions and the healthcare systems inside prisons are extremely poor. The coronavirus pandemic makes detainees particularly vulnerable and at risk. COVID-19 calls for states to quickly solve issues regarding their detention system to avoid...

AllAfrica Minister of homeland security, Richard Chimwendo Banda , acknowledged that the situation in the the country's prisons over Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is deteriorating because of overcrowding. Chimwendo Banda said this as Covid-19 cases has increased among both staff and inmates. He said a special presidential committee to look into...

The Regional Campaign to Decriminalise Petty Offences has long argued for a change in police arrest practices and increased accountability of law enforcement agencies. Deprose Muchena, the Director of Amnesty International’s Southern Africa office, writes that the brutal killing of George Floyd has resonated in Africa, highlighting the long-standing problem of...

The Mail & Guardian By Sean Tait On April 10, Collins Khosa was allegedly assaulted by members of the South African National Defence Force and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department. Khosa died as a result of what appears to have been grossly overzealous enforcement of the Covid-19 state of national...

The Weekend Nation By Victor Mhango from the Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance (CHREAA) and Anneke Meerkotter and Chikondi Chijozi from the Southern Africa Litigation Centre SALC) Malawi’s 2020 Public Health (Corona Virus Prevention, Containment and Management) Rules, prescribes what must happen if and when a lockdown takes...

The Daily Maverick In the wake of the controversy surrounding a video of Cape Town resident Bulelani Qolani being dragged naked from his shack by municipal police, is it not time for a complete overhaul of police oversight mechanisms, and for Ipid to take control? A video in which the City...

GENEVA (2 July 2020) — The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has called for the role of domestic monitoring bodies, officially known as National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs), to be strengthened, highlighting the importance of monitoring the conditions of people deprived of liberty in critical situations such as the current COVID-19 pandemic....

On 26 June 2020, the UN Anti-Torture Mechanisms issued a statement on how COVID-19 exacerbates the risk of ill-treatment and torture worldwide. The statement notes that excessive force to enforce curfews and social distancing rules can amount to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment. The experts stressed that independent...

The Global Fund Sex workers in Africa are among the communities suffering the most due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as lockdowns and police crackdowns leave millions without income. Sex workers have always been vulnerable to violence and infectious diseases such as HIV, but COVID-19 has increased those risks. “With the...

The Daily Nation By Grace Ngenye When I read the Daily Nation article (June 17, 2020) on the Committee on Criminal Justice Reforms (NCCJR), my first reaction was gratitude for the attention the work we are doing to transform this critical sector is finally getting. Many facts were missed and...

Times Live A law that criminalises children who possess or use cannabis has been declared unconstitutional by a Johannesburg high court judge. Judge Ingrid Opperman said the way children were still being treated, two years after the Constitutional Court decriminalised cannabis possession and use for adults, was redolent of apartheid...

On 14 July 2020, the Malawi Prison Service registered its first COVID-19 case at Mzimba Prison through a prisoner. On the same day, an inmate also tested positive for the virus at Chichiri Prison in Blantyre. Each of the two cases have been isolated, as have been  prisoners and warders...

The African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF) welcomes the opportunity to make this submission to the Special Rapporteur on Prisons, Conditions of Detention and Policing in Africa, and we do so on behalf of the Regional Campaign to Decriminalise Petty Offences in Africa (‘the Regional Campaign’). More information about the...

A Nigerian court has voided the arrest of commercial sex workers in Abuja by law enforcement officials. The Abuja Federal High Court presided over by Justice Binta Nyako on Wednesday declared that officials of a security task force acted outside the law when they broke into apartments in Abuja suburbs around 11...

By: WIEGO Date: February 2020 Through photography and text, this e-book offers an in-depth look at the important role street vendors play in cities, the challenges they face, and the solutions that can make cities more vibrant, secure, and affordable for all.  It also provides insights into how street vendor organizations...

Although there is no law against prostitution in Malawi, sex workers routinely face abuse and wrongful arrest by police who give in to social stigma and misunderstand the law, according to campaigners. That leaves them vulnerable to violence, because they can’t rely on police to help them when they are...

21 Civil society organizations have formed the Uganda Coalition to decriminalize petty offences. The coalition was formed at a 2-day retreat convened by the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF) a member of the regional network on decriminalization of petty offences. Private individuals including the Uganda Human Rights Commission...

H.E the President of the Republic of Uganda has directed that no person should be arrested for the crime of "idle and disorderly". The President has also directed that all those already arrested for this crime, be released immediately and prosecution discontinued. I hereby instruct all police officers to fully comply...

Today the petition challenging the constitutionality of Section 168 (1) (c) and (d), of Uganda's Penal Code Act, which creates the offence of 'being rogue and vagabond,' Francis Tumwesige Vs Attorney General, Constitutional Petition No.36 of 2018, came up for conferencing between the petitioner and the respondent's counsel. However, the Attorney...

By ERIC WAINAINA Weeks ago as Mr Kamau Mburu and other people were walking home shortly past 11 pm, they were rounded up in Kirigiti and taken to Kiambu Police Station. At the station, the farmhand and fellow “suspects” found more people, mostly young people who had been picked up...

By Sarah Nyakio Seven out of 10 inmates in the country are petty offenders with the lowest case determination rates, the Annual Criminal Justice Conference was told on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. According to the audit on Criminal Justice System in Kenya report, 28,768 charges prosecuted in 15 Kenyan courts...

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) will continue to highlight and push reforms to address alternative measures that may mitigate the excessive use of pre-trial detention. Executive Secretary of NHRC, Mr Tony Ojukwu, made this known on Thursday, during a visit to the Kuje Prison in commemoration of The African...

Enter a prison and brace yourself for the harsh experience of inmates imprisoned in colonial times. Not much has changed since the 1900s in terms of facilities and, many say, in treatment. Still, some inmates have left prison reformed and better skilled to earn a living on the outside. One...