Africa Criminal Justice Reform

Africa Criminal Justice Reform (ACJR) is a research and advocacy organisation which seeks to further human rights in places of confinement in Africa. ACJR is part of the Dullah Omar Institute for Constitutional Law, Governance and Human Rights at the University of the Western Cape, of which the overall objective is to promote good governance and human rights, focusing on vulnerable groups in society. ACJR concentrates on criminal justice reform and the rights of people deprived of their liberty by the state. To this end, it engages in high-quality legal and empirical research and targets the intersections of good governance and human rights. ACJR works towards stimulating and guiding knowledge- and evidence-based law, policy and practice reform in the criminal justice sector. The project’s work is anchored in international, regional and domestic law. Its efforts focus on strengthening compliance with procedural and substantive rights of accused and convicted persons, emphasising due process rights, the right to dignity and the right to be free from torture and other ill treatment.