ANGOLA: National Laws

Summary: General overview of Angola's national legal provisions on children's rights, including guidance on how to conduct further research.

National laws on children's rights

Status of CRC in national law
Under Angola's Constitution (Article 26), fundamental rights include those granted under international law, and both national legislation and the Constitution itself must be “interpreted and incorporated” in accordance with ratified international treaties, including the CRC. The CRC is also directly enforceable in Angolan courts as the Constitution (Article 26 (3)) mandates that where disputes around fundamental rights arise, judges must look to relevant international conventions in their analysis, even if these conventions have not been raised by the parties concerned. 

Constitution- the 2010 Constitution of the Republic of Angola has a number of provisions that make specific reference to the rights of children, namely: 

  • Art. 9: regarding the requirements for Angolan nationality

  • Art. 21: including the full development of children within the fundamental tasks of the state

  • Art. 35(5): regarding the equality of children before the law and the prohibition of discrimination and discriminatory nomenclature with regards to filiation

  • Art. 35(6): the “absolute priority of the family, the state and society to protect the rights of the child, namely their full and balanced upbringing, health care, education and living conditions”

  • Art. 40(3): citing the protection of children as a permitted ground for limiting free expression

  • Art. 77(1): creating the duty to promote and guarantee universal medical and health care, in particular child care and maternity care

  • Art. 80: on the “rights of childhood”, including education, protection from neglect, discrimination and exploitation, the protection of orphans and the prohibition on employment for minors of school age

  • Art. 84(1): children of combatants killed in action “enjoy the special protection of the state and society”

Legislation- Angola does not have a consolidated and comprehensive Children's Act. Rather, legislation relevant to children's rights is found throughout Constitutional Laws, Laws and Resolutions of the National Assembly, Presidential Decrees and Dispatches, and Executive Decrees and Ministerial Dispatches that are legislative in nature. There are a number of Codes that cover more specific areas of the law. Relevant laws include, but are by no means limited to: 

  • The Family Code

  • The Penal Code

  • Law No. 9/96 of 19th Apr. on the Court for Minors

  • Decree No. 20/07 of 20th Apr. on the creation of the National Council of Children

  • Decree No. 50/05 of 8th Aug. on the programme to assist street children, the community education programme, and support for children in difficulty

  • Law N. 7/05 and Decrees 38/98 of 6th Nov. and 46-C/92 of 9th Sept. on the family allowance and the law on support which strengthens the progenitors' responsibility with regard to the support of their children

  • The General National Police Command, by Order No. 242 of 11th Oct. creating the Violence against Women and Children Unit

  • Law 1/05 of 1st Jul. establishing the conditions for awarding, acquiring, losing and reacquiring Angolan citizenship

Legal research:
The Government of Angola offers a searchable database of laws currently in force in Portuguese (http://www.governo.gov.ao/LegislacaoTodos.aspx), although the database is neither comprehensive nor up-to-date. The Official Gazette of Angola is available online in Portuguese (http://www.angolanainternet.ao/boletiminformativo/), and translations of the 2010 Constitution can be found on the World Intellectual Property Organization website (http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/details.jsp?id=5622). New York University's GlobaLex project provides a useful introduction to research into the Angolan legal and political systems (http://www.nyulawglobal.org/Globalex/Angola.htm), but has not yet been updated to take account of the 2010 Constitution. The United States Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide/nations/angola.php) and the World Legal Information Institute (http://www.worldlii.org/catalog/2674.html) both provide a selection of links to government departments and other legal websites.

Case law
CRC Jurisprudence
Please contact CRIN if you are aware of any cases in national courts that reference the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Case Law Research
Case law does not generally play a particularly strong role in the formation of Angolan law, and unfortunately the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo) does not report its cases.

Compliance with the CRC
In its 2010 Concluding Observations, the Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed interest in the new Constitution's many provisions on children's rights. However, the Committee also remarked on Angola's general failure to harmonise legislation with the Convention, noting with regret “that the implementation of legislation continues to be hindered by a lack of adequate resources and capacity building and that there is a large backlog of legislation awaiting adoption by Parliament.”

In depth analysis:
Discrimination is an area of Angolan law that contains a number of inconsistencies with the CRC. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has been critical of the law in allowing both girls and boys to marry under the age of 18 without the supervision of the courts, and that girls are able to marry from 15 years of age while boys can marry from 16. While the Constitution includes anti-discrimination provisions, the Committee has expressed concern that children with disabilities, children with HIV/AIDS, and minority children continue to suffer discrimination in many areas of life. In response, the Committee has recommended that the Angolan State adopt relevant international instruments and take measures nationally to combat this discrimination.

Violence and abuse remain a part of life for many children in Angola. While corporal punishment is unlawful as a form of punishment for a crime, it remains lawful in the home and there is no explicit prohibition for its use in schools, alternative care settings or use as a disciplinary measure in penal institutions. The Committee has also been critical of the absence of specific legislation to protect children against abuse and neglect. Similarly, the Committee has recommended the reform of legislation relating to the sale, trafficking and abduction of children, where “the legal definitions of these crimes and their sanctions are unclear”.

Juvenile justice is also an area of Angolan law that generally falls short of the provisions of the CRC. Children continue to be detained with adults, there are reports of the ill-treatment of children by police, and proposed changes to the Penal Code seek to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14.

Current legal reform projects
In its 2010 Concluding Observations, the Committee on the Rights of the Child noted pending juvenile justice reforms and expressed concern at the measures in the draft penal code to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14, as well as at the lack of clarity as to whether children in conflict with the law between the ages of 16 and 18 would retain the benefits of special protection for juvenile offenders. It is not yet clear whether such concerns have been taken into account in the reform process, as these specifics are part of a larger scale revision of the Unified Justice System, which was being developed in a large number of legislative drafts at the time of the most recent report to the Committee.

Countries

Please note that these reports are hosted by CRIN as a resource for Child Rights campaigners, researchers and other interested parties. Unless otherwise stated, they are not the work of CRIN and their inclusion in our database does not necessarily signify endorsement or agreement with their content by CRIN.