Decriminalisation of Petty Offences in Africa

Decriminalisation of Petty Offences in Africa

African prisons and other detention areas are some of the most crowded places globally. One of the reasons for the crowding, with some facilities housing more than three times the recommended capacity is the locking up petty offenders. Petty offences laws are used in most applied arbitrarily to deny people their liberty and freedom, and more often than not, abused to exploit vulnerable and marginalised groups of the society. With police cells, and remands acting as holding areas, there are no reliable statistic on the number of petty offences in Africa. Another reason for lack of official statistics in the arbitrary arrests of the people and intimidation to buy freedom before being booked into the records or prosecuted. On the other hand, application by the police under national/federal law as well as at counties and municipalities makes it even harder to collate data.

Petty offences can be traced back to colonial era when they were used to control movement of the people in Africa. Most of the countries of origin of the petty offences laws, like Britain, have decriminalised. In post-colonial Africa, they have been used to ‘control public nuisance’. Common petty offences include hawking being a nuisance, urinating in public, washing clothes in public, disobedience to parents, failure to pay debts, speeding and touting, loitering, among others.

Taking cognisance of the misuse of laws on petty offences, more so against the poor and marginalised groups, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights developed and launched the Principle on Decriminalisation of Petty offences in Africa during the 63^rd Ordinary Session in October 2018 in Banjul, The Gambia. 

To support this initiative, NANHRI initiated a project on Enhancing the Role of National Human Rights Institutions in Decriminalisation of petty Offences in 2018. For this to be effective NANHRI has been engaging national actors including the NHRIs, security agencies, the judiciary, civil society organisation, among others in working towards removing from law of petty offences. Some of the countries which have benefited from the project include Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ghana. NANHRI is also working with NHRIs and national stakeholders in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Uganda. In the workshops and discussions, the actors develop national action plans. Through consolidated efforts, the national actors implement the national action plans as they also monitor and report on the situations of detentions.

NANHRI -in collaboration with other partners- is also developing a scorecard on the implementation of the Principles on Decriminalisation of Petty Offences. The scorecard will help in tracking the progress of decriminalising petty offences in Africa as per the States’ commitment to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the other national ns international commitments to the rule of law.