Judges´` Incarceration decisions in Mozambique

The need to decolonise the punitive approach to criminal justice

Resumen

Over the last decade, Mozambique embarked on a comprehensive reform that aimed at improving the conditions of prisons in the country. Legal reform was accompanied by institutional reform. Prison conditions, however, have not improved at the pace they should have developed. Based on the findings of research conducted on prisons by the organisations Africa Criminal Justice Reform and REFORMAR- Research for Mozambique, over the last ten years, this article aims at drawing the attention of the prison issues from the judges’ incarceration decisions. In fact, while studies of criminal justice reform have traditionally examined the systematic deficiencies of the prison system, a closer look at the role of judges in the context of prison provides practical understandings, especially where there are substantive non-conformities with the legal framework in place. Solutions are, furthermore, threefold: the use of legal remedies by victims of judicial decisions and the civil liability of the state for illegal detention and the overall decolonisation of the state approach to criminal justice by all actors of the state administration.