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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
République Démocratique Du Congo c République Du Rwanda (Requête N°007/2023) [2024] AfCHPR 6 (7 mars 2024) 7 March 2024 Democratic Republic of the Congo v Republic of Rwanda (Application No. 007/2023) [2024] AfCHPR 6 (7 March 2024) 7 March 2024 Attorney General of the Republic of Burundi v Ngaruko (Appeal No. 12 of 2022) [2024] EACJ 1 (27 February 2024) 27 February 2024 V.H. and Others v Chairperson of African Union Commission (AUAT/2022/004) [2024] AfUAT 7 (26 February 2024) 26 February 2024 M.K. v Chairperson of African Union Commission (AUAT/2021/011) [2024] AfUAT 3 (26 February 2024) 26 February 2024 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 Protocol on Rules and Procedures on the Settlement of Disputes 21 March 2018 View more legal instrumentsRecent Soft Law
Résolution sur la situation des droits de l'homme et la crise humanitaire causée par le conflit armé en cours en République du Soudan 29 December 2023 Resolution on the human rights situation and humanitarian crisis caused by the ongoing armed conflict in the Republic of The Sudan 29 December 2023 Décision sur les Leaders Africains Pour L’initiative Pour la Nutrition 29 October 2023 Communiqué de la 1180ème réunion du CPS, tenue le 23 octobre 2023 et consacrée à la situation en République gabonaise 20 October 2023 Communiqué de la 1180ème réunion du CPS tenue le 23 octobre 2023 et consacrée à la situation en République du Niger 20 October 2023 View more Soft LawRecent Reports and Guides
Ministerial High-Level Seminar of the AU Peace and Security Council: Advancing Women’s Participation and Leadership in Peace Processes in Africa 24 March 2024 Press Release: African Union Convenes Second Reflection Forum on Unconstitutional Changes of Government (Accra II process on UCGs) to be held in Accra, Ghana 13 March 2024 Communique of the 1204th Meeting of the PSC held on 13 March 2024, on the briefing by the Panel of the Wise on its activities in Africa 13 March 2024 Communique of the 1204th Meeting of the PSC held on 13 March 2024, on the briefing by the Panel of the Wise on its activities in Africa 13 March 2024 Press Release: African Union Honours the Team of African Experts Who Served Under the AU Monitoring, Verification and Compliance Mission (MVCM) in Tigray 12 March 2024 View more Reports and GuidesExplore African national legal information
Explore African national legislation and court judgments from Legal Information Institutes across Africa.
Latest Commentary
‘No justification for the unjustifiable’: Lesotho’s ombud slams grand-scale torture, assault in Maseru prison
- 22 March 2024
- Carmel Rickard
Lesotho’s national ombud, Tlotliso Angelina Polaki, has issued a scathing report on massive-scale torture and assaults that took place in Maseru’s central correctional institution during December 2023, leaving about 95% of the inmates of the prison injured, one dead and one who is now wheelchair-bound and will never walk again.
Major court decision on image rights benefits Ugandan soccer players
- 21 March 2024
- Carmel Rickard
Members of Uganda’s national soccer team from the period around 2007/8 have just been awarded a payout against MTN Uganda by the commercial court. The telecom giant had a year-long contract with Proline, the players’ originating development soccer club, allowing it to use the players’ images for advertising. But MTN had continued to use their images even after that contract expired on the basis that it had a sponsorship agreement with Fufa, soccer’s governing body in Uganda. The players then challenged MTN in court, through Proline, and have now won a significant damages award. But the judgment exposed some serious flaws in the way that Fufa has approached the question of using the image rights of its senior players, and the court commented that this is a ‘case study’ for why Fufa needs to sort out its contractual arrangements with senior players.
Executive interference in Ugandan court decisions continues – this time by the justice minister
- 21 March 2024
- Carmel Rickard
Uganda’s minister of justice, Norbert Mao, has taken a leaf straight from the book of the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni. This week, the minister wrote to the principal judge of the Ugandan high court, asking that the judge directly intervene in a matter that has been brought to his attention by an MP on behalf of a constituent. Mao asked for the ‘immediate administrative intervention’ in the matter by the principal judge. Earlier this year, Museveni wrote a similar letter to the chief justice of Uganda, also requesting intervention in a matter, and the CJ later indicated that this was not the first time it had happened.
Is rape by family members treated too lightly by the law?
- 19 March 2024
- Carmel Rickard
The high court has sent the case of a Malawian teenager, charged with raping his 89-year-old grandmother, back to the magistrate’s court for a possible re-trial because the court had wrongly prosecuted a case of rape instead of incest. If convicted in a re-trial, however, Malawi’s incest law could see the accused sentenced to a mere five years. Malawi’s penal code provides for a significant difference between the sentence to be imposed when a man rapes a close family member, and in a case where the two are not related. When they are unrelated, the code provides that a rape offender ‘shall be liable to be punished with death or with imprisonment for life’ (However, Malawi has had what amounts to a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty since 1992.) By contrast, ‘incest by males’, is categorised in the code as a ‘felony’, and anyone convicted ‘shall be liable for imprisonment for five years’. There is an exception: if it is proved ‘that the female person is under the age of 16, the offender shall be liable to imprisonment for life’.
Are the courts out of touch with the ordinary, and often poor, people they serve?
- 6 March 2024
- Carmel Rickard
This is a question that readers can’t help asking, based on a contempt of court conviction and sentence by the magistrate’s court in Namibia. The case raises concerns about a lack of sensitivity and awareness of that court to the daily difficulties of poor people it serves. The accused in the case, Festus Shimmy, was sent to prison for three months because he wore ‘short pants’ to a court hearing and the magistrate convicted him of contempt of court for doing so. Explaining his attire, Shimmy told the court that his long trousers were very dirty and so he had worn the shorts. To make matters worse, his case was not sent to the high court on review ‘without delay’, as the law requires in contempt of court matters, but only arrived for review well after the three-month sentence had expired. This meant that even though the high court set aside his conviction and sentence, this came too late for Shimmy. Further, the high court pointed out that the magistrate imposed a fine of N$500, though the law clearly states the maximum is N$100.