I also intend to explain to Your Excellency about the periods of remand in custody
required by law, which Your Excellency mentioned in your report, but which
require clarification. The Law authorizes different lengths of time for remand,
according to whether it concerns remand with or without established guilt.
In respect of release on bail and its inherent obligations, the law establishes a
special period of remand for situations in which these conditions are not obeyed.
Thus, if these conditions are not fulfilled, the period of remand depends on the
offence.
Thus:
There is an exception in cases where release on bail is inadmissible. In these
cases, in a despatch giving his reasons and after hearing the Prosecution and the
Defence, the judge may straight away set the date for the judicial proceedings
which he deems indispensable for the conclusion of the instruction, and may
extend the above mentioned periods for a time not exceeding 60 days.
In cases of remand in custody without established guiltThe Law establishes two periods of remand without established guilt, to wit:
a) lasting up to the notification of (
instructions to the contrary.
to the accused or request for
For the first period, we have the durations of remand set out in § I of Article 380
of the Penal Code, which are as follows:
- 20 days, for crimes of fraud, for which the correctional prison sentence is
over a year;
- 40 days, for crimes which may attract a longer sentence;
- 90 days, for crimes that are instructed exclusively by the Criminal
Investigation Police (CIP) (i.e., forging of banknotes, drug trafficking, etc.)
or in cases of ceded competence, in which competence may only be granted
by the Public Prosecutor;
These remand penods start to count from the day of the arrest.
In cases of remand with established guilt:
if any accused persons are in detention, and the period of remand up to the trial
has been longer than one year in the case of trial proceedings, six months in
proceedings of the Criminal Investigation Police, and three months in the
remaining forms of proceedings, the Prosecution will inform the Public
Prosecutor of the fact, who will take or propose the appropriate measures, within
the terms of Article 337 of the Penal Code, and may request the Supreme Court
to set a date for the trial.
I finish by expressing my hope that your work, as Commissioner of the African
Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, will contribute positively towards
the prison policies as a whole that are to be introduced and perfected by the
Governments of our countries.
Please accept the expression of my highest consideration.
b) that which goes from the indictment up to the time of sentencing;
The Minister of Justice
For the second period, i.e., in cases of remand up to the time of sentencing, we
have § 2 of the same article, which establishes the following periods of remand:
- 3 months, if the offence is susceptible of receiving a sentence corresponding
to a proceeding by the Criminal Investigation Police;
Jose Ibraimo Abudo
The at tgotal of these comments ts to Portuguese
- 4 months, for crimes which may attract a sentence after trial.
These periods are counted, not from the day of the arrest, but from notification
of the charges to the accused or the request for instructions to the contrary.
At the end of these delays, the Accused must be set flee being released on bail
and subject to certain conditions determined by the Jude.
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