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African Court’s Landmark Opinion Could Reduce Criminalization of Poverty, Prison Overcrowding

Today, a continental court in Africa delivered a landmark opinion on colonial era vagrancy laws, which criminalize activities such as loitering, public indecency, and begging. The judgement has the potential to help reshape criminal justice policy and practice in dozens of African countries and reduce prison overcrowding.

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued an Advisory Opinion in response to a case brought by the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), and found that vagrancy laws or bylaws in nearly every country in Africa discriminate against marginalized populations including women, children and people with disabilities, among others.

“These vague and arbitrary laws, rooted in the era of empire law making, are used to arrest and imprison thousands of poor and marginalized people every day including the poor and the homeless, street children, migrants, people with disabilities, sex workers, LGBTI people, and drug users.” said Louise Ehlers, of the Open Society Foundations. “This judgement has the potential to significantly reduce exposure to police violence and incarceration for these communities both in Africa and in other places grappling with a colonial legacy of vague, discriminatory criminal law” she said.

The Open Society Justice Initiative filed an amicus brief in the case, citing the urgent need to decriminalize vagrancy laws in light of the COVID-19 pandemic because the laws over-incarcerate poor and marginalized people, putting them at greater risk of contracting the virus.

“It is in the interest of African states to implement this advisory opinion by repealing all vagrancy laws, which reinforce structural discrimination and penalize poverty,” said Stanley Ibe, associate legal officer for Africa at the Open Society Justice Initiative. “Since vagrancy laws contribute to dangerously overcrowded prisons, a hotbed of COVID-19, failing to do so could have disastrous consequences.”